Hogwarts: The Next Generation
by Vasilisa23
Summary: In which Lenore discovers a new ability and Lysander discovers the long-long secret room of a great wizard.
1. Chapter 1

So I have given in to temptation and started on a Next Generation fic. I don't really know where it's going or anything. There's no clear protagonist—even though Albus is clearly the first chapter's protagonist. All of the children named in JKR's last chapter and her family tree will be gotten into here. Not sure of the years of the kids, so I have guestimated their placement into Hogwarts-- and now I'm having this moment where I'm pretty sure in was Hugo, not Rose, who got on the train. Forgive. There are OC's here, just because it would be boring to deal only with Potter, Weasely, and Malfoy spawn. Enjoy!

.((0)).

Albus Severus Potter spent his first train ride to Hogwarts paralyzed. James wouldn't stop coming in and out of the compartment, reporting on Teddy's refusal to let him in with the fifth years, the fact that Scorpius Malfoy was a right little git, how Molly Weasely had set off a stinkbomb in the girl's toilet, and Louis hadn't gone to Beauxbatons after all, and Fergus Finnegan had gotten a howler already, and he didn't stop until the train did. Rose, meanwhile, read. She didn't lift her eyes from A History of Hogwarts once. Albus didn't say a word, eat a thing, or move. No one noticed, until it was time to get off the train. James went out with a whoop as soon as the train started to slow down, while Rose patiently stowed her book in her bag and floated her luggage down from the ledge. This made Albus nervous. He was hopeless at every single spell he put his mind to. And he practiced a lot more than he let on. Rose looked over at him, her curly brown hair falling rakishly over her bright blue eyes. "Come along, Albus."

Albus stood, forgetting even to remind Rose not to call him Albus. It was Al. Only Rose held tenaciously onto his birth name. She never shortened anyone's name. She was the type of child who despised being thought of as cute and who spoke in complete, often complex sentences.

Rose gave him an impatient look. "Honestly, Albus, you're the most un-Slytherinlike person I can think of, I don't see why you have to be so worried!" She tugged on his arm. "Come on!"

"I'm afraid of the Thestrals!" he said, standing in spite of himself.

Rose put his bag in his hand. "You're afraid of everything." She walked down the corridor of the train. "Anyway, you won't be able to see them."

Albus followed Rose into a carriage, looking suspiciously at the empty harnesses. In the carriage was a very pretty black girl who looked to be about Albus and Rose's age and, improbably, Scorpius Malfoy, who gave them a suspicious look when they climbed into the carriage.

"Hello," said Rose diplomatically, sitting down. The girl smiled but said nothing. Albus settled his bag and sat down, trying not to look at anyone. Especially Scorpius.

"Who are you?" said Scorpius in a demanding tone.

Albus felt it safest to look at Rose, whose arms were folded and whose eyebrow was raised. That, Albus knew to be a dangerous look, a look that preceded many terrible curses and hexes. He pushed his glasses up his nose. "Rose Weasely. And you are?"

The boy sniffed. "Scorpius Malfoy. My father hates your father." He looked at Albus, and Albus tried desperately not to notice. "Is he one, too?"

"Is he one _what_?"

"A Weasely, obviously. You breed like gerbils."

"He's a Potter, for your information," said Rose icily.

"Oh. My father hates his father, too."

"_He_ is right here."

"Um," said Albus.

"My name is Sadie!" said the other girl, a little bit too brightly. Albus stared at her. She looked at him, as if for help. Albus noticed Rose's wand was extended. The girl, Sadie, reached out to shake Rose's hand. "Sadie Thomas," she added helpfully. Now Rose looked at her. Slowly, she took Sadie's hand and shook it with her free hand. As she returned her focus to Scorpius, he managed to take out his own wand.

"Bogus blo—"

"Mutatis igipus," Rose interrupted coldly. A blue light burst out of her wand and hit Scorpius straight in the chest. Sadie and Albus both stared as Scorpius began to shrink and then transformed into a guinea pig before their eyes. He looked up at them from his seat and proceeded to throw a rodent temper tantrum, squeaking as loudly as it could, which wasn't very much at all. Sadie squealed and jumped up.

"Rose!" said Albus.

"What?"

"What do you mean, what? I don't think you're allowed to do magic! You have to turn him back!"

Rose sneered at the guinea pig, who seemed to be calculating its odds of jumping from its seat onto Rose in some kind of misguided attempt to bite her. "Pfft, rules and regulations," she muttered under her breath.

"You really, really should," said Sadie helpfully, and Albus gave her a grateful smile.

Rose gave her a considerate glance, turned back to Scorpius, and pointed her wand at him in a wistful sort of way. "All right," she said sadly, and then, "Finite Incantatem."

The guinea pig grew back into Scorpius, and before he had even properly returned to form, it was obvious he was going to try and strangle Rose, so Albus and Sadie managed to get in between them and calm him down.

"I'm going to get you, Rose Weasely," he finally muttered. "I promise you, you won't know what hit you." Then he glared at them for the rest of the ride.

Albus finally got a look at Hagrid on his way into the castle. Hagrid noticed him immediately, barreling down towards him and Rose and Sadie (Scorpius had stalked quickly ahead of them). Albus nearly had a heart attack. He'd never seen anything that big, except for a bear at the zoo, and Hagrid was actually slightly bigger. He stared up at him, open-mouthed.

"How yer doing?" he said in a jovial, gravelly voice.

Rose answered for him. "Hello, Hagrid. It's nice to meet you. Mum and Dad told me to tell you hello."

"Little Rosie?"

She nodded, and blushed. For the first time in his life it occurred to Albus that Rose might hate Rosie as much as he hated Albus. Excellent. Blackmail. Albus chanced a glance at Sadie and noticed she was also staring at Hagrid.

"Last time I saw you, you were a wee little baby."

Rose blushed an even deeper shade of pink.

"And this'll be Albus, will it?" said Hagrid.

Albus nodded gravely. "Ye've got yer grandmum's eyes," he said, and sighed to himself. "Lily, a grandmum," he said to himself and tousled Albus's hair, which nearly sent him crashing to the ground. He stumbled a bit and recovered himself. Hagrid was craning over to look at their other companion. "And what's your name?"

"Sadie Thomas," said the little girl.

"You'll be Dean Thomas's little girl, then?"

She nodded, her plaits bouncing on either side of her head.

"Rubeus Hagrid. Gameskeeper and Hogwarts Instructor. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Nice to meet you," she nearly whispered.

"All right!" shouted Hagrid. "First Years, this way! To the Sorting Hat!"

The first years nervously followed Hagrid into the Great Hall, where all the other students were seated. Albus, Rose, and Sadie were in the front of the line, which meant they bore the full brunt of everyone's gaze. Rose merely stared unconcernedly in front of her. Albus and Sadie tried to hide behind each other. Finally, they were seated.

Professor McGonnagal stood up at the staff table and cleared her throat, which cut all the noise in the Great Hall down with a scythe. "Welcome, first years, to Hogwarts. I hope that as the years pass, you will come to consider this as your second home. We encourage you to make the best of your education so that you can lead happy and productive lives as wizards and witches. And now, without further ado, it's time for the sorting to begin."

Her gesture indicated the dreaded Sorting Hat, which Albus had not seen until now. He stared at it, and to his very great horror, it began to sing.

"It's singing," he squeaked.

"It always sings. Don't you know anything?" asked Rose.

"It doesn't make Hufflepuff sound very good, does it?" whispered Sadie.

Rose nodded her agreement. "That's my worst fear."

"Slytherin is much, much, much worse," Albus insisted fervently.

"I'd still prefer it to Hufflepuff," said Rose, loftily.

Sadie was listening to the song. "Ravenclaw seems all right. Did you ever see a picture of Rowena Ravenclaw? She was so pretty."

Rose shot her an annoyed look. "The cleverest witch to ever live, and you think she's pretty?" Sadie fairly shrank back in her seat.

"Rose!" admonished Albus.

Freddy Weasely leaned forward, in between Rose and Albus. "Is Rose being mean again?" He grinned, his teeth white against his dark skin. "Ah—the part we've all been waiting for—Gryffindor!"

"Speak for yourself," said Rose.

"Oh, go read a dictionary," said Freddy. He turned to Sadie. "Hi."

"Hi," she offered shyly.

For some reason, Albus didn't like the way Freddy was smiling at her. But the song had ended, and now there was only fear—the slow, agonizing fear that had been eating at him since the beginning of the summer, when he discovered his only real magical ability—talking to snakes. He closed his eyes and crossed his fingers. Please don't let me go to Slytherin, please don't let me go to Slytherin, please don't let me go to Slytherin.

"Scorpius Malfoy!"

"Tosser," opined Rose as they watched him take his seat. No one was surprised when he was placed in Slytherin.

"Priti Patil!" he heard Headmistress McGonnagal call out, and turned to see a girl take her turn on the stool. "Ravenclaw!" she hat called out, and she beamed, then jumped off the stool and ran to join her table.

"Albus Severus Potter!" called out the Headmistress, and Albus cringed. Did she have to call out his whole name? Oh, no, she was starting to call it out again. Albus managed to jump off his chair fast enough prevent her from getting to the Severus bit again. He stumbled a bit as he made his way to the stool and fidgeted his way onto it. He looked up at the Headmistress—it was impossible to believe he might one day be as tall as grown-ups were. She smiled at him and placed the hat on his head.

The hat made its decision without consulting him. "Slytherin!" it called out triumphantly. Albus blinked.


	2. Chapter 2

Heya guys—another chapter! This chapter stars James (Harry and Ginny's first son), Molly (daughter of Percy and some woman who is not Penelope Clearwater—sorry, Penelope), and Fergus Finnigan—an OC, but how could JKR resist naming the son of Seamus Fergus? It's too perfect.

Iheartinuyasha169: thankee, thankee. Soon enough for you?

TheCrescentMoonWriter and blindfaithoperadiva—so you have come in from Tom and Hermione's dark romance? I'm so happy. This is definitely a bit of a different tone, the rating is different and all. C.M.W., let me know when you write that fic. There's no way to have a Next Generation fic without Al in Slytherin. B.F.O.D. Hopefully you'd continue to dig the lighter fare. There's a good Next Generation fic called Ten Little Things, which explores a different character in each chapter. I think pretty much every character has been done, and Snape and Voldemort have been done beautifully.

Draco-fan17: Hopefully Scorpius is close enough to Draco for you to dig. Don't worry, I won't demonize him or anything.

James, Molly, and Fergus Finnigan, snuck out of the Dining Hall as soon as they were able to. They headed for their favorite place in the whole of Hogwarts—The Room of Requirement. The thing they required most often was a Marauder's Headquarters. They had named themselves after the original Marauders, the makers of the map James had stolen from his dad at the tender age of eleven. Whoever Moony, Padfoot, Prongs, and Wormtail were, they had James, Fergus, and Molly's undying loyalty. The Headquarters was brilliant, a candy-shop-cum-joke-shop as imagined by thirteen-year-olds. It was very colorful and very dangerous. Fergus's stomach had exploded in here the year previously, in the early days of the candy laboratory. They had since developed rigorous testing devices before they consumed any of their test products.

"I really think we should start recruiting, this year," said Fergus, flopping down on a sofa shaped like a seated robot (it was actually made of cushions, and was much more comfortable than it looked).

"Lorcan and Lysander," said Molly, immediately.

"Hmm," said Fergus considerinly.

"I vote for Freddy," said James.

"He's only just come in," said Fergus. "We can't have a first year for a Marauder!"

"But it's Freddy," whined James.

"Maybe next year," said Molly. "I don't see what's so bad about Lorcan and Lysander."

"Lorcan is what's so bad about Lorcan and Lysander. He can't tie his shoes without setting them on fire."

"That's what makes them fun," said Molly.

"Molly," said James seriously, "How many times do I need to tell you that the essence of the Marauders, the very reason for its existence, is providing the general public with excellent pranks? Pranks are a serious business. They require a certain logic, careful planning, flawless execution, and perfect timing. _Lorcan_ cannot be trusted with a prank. And Lysander's not as much fun as Lorcan."

"So you admit he's fun?"

"Of course," said James reassuringly. "Dim, but fun. Lysander's a bit…Rose-ish."

"Let's just keep it to ourselves," said Fergus. "Three's not a bad number."

"There were four Marauders," said James fussily. "Which makes Freddy perfect."

"James, no," insisted Molly. "Not a first year." She squinted at the ceiling for a moment, tucking her short, dark hair behind one ear. "If I could pick a first year I would pick Rose."

"Rose!" shouted James. "I just used her name as an adjective to describe someone who's bookish and no fun."

"Rose is smart and she had no morals. She always sneaks in food at midnight in the girl's room at the Burrow. Do you know, she used to go into muggle London to nick things? Just to nick them. And she's been into Diagon Alley—twice!"

"You see?" said James. "She'd lead us down the path of darkness. I wonder if she'll be in Gryffindor?"

"She said she wants Ravenclaw."

"Ugh, Ravenclaw," muttered Fergus. He perked up a bit. "On second thought, Ravenclaw has the best girls."

"Gryffindor is the best house," said Molly.

"Obviously," said James.

"Anyway, I think we should choose someone from outside your family," said Fergus. "You Weaseleys hold a chokehold over Hogwarts as it is."

"Hey, I'm a Potter!" said James.

"Whatever, you're cousins and stuff."

"All right!" interrupted Molly. "It's the three of us, then. Now let's get down to Marauder business and think of how to introduce ourselves to our housemates this year."

"Hmm," said James.

"Fireworks?" suggested Fergus.

"We've done those before," said James. "Nifflers in the dormitories?"

"Not dramatic enough," said Molly

"Maybe we should get Peeves in on it," said Fergus.

"Peeves is always a good idea," agreed Molly, who had shared an unholy alliance with the poltergeist since her first year. She was the only person he'd listened to in the history of Hogwarts (excepting the Weasely twins during the dark year of Umbridge).

"And bugs," said Fergus. "We should definitely use bugs."

"Hmm," said James in a critical fashion. "They _are_ very effective. Do you remember when I turned Uncle Percy's spaghetti into worms?"

Molly laughed. "He still can't eat anything with noodles. Perhaps if he hadn't swallowed…"

"You're dad's a prat," said James lazily, lying back on the floor. Before he knew it, he had been pinned down by a wildebeest. Molly's face was very red and her fist was drawn back. "Whoa, Molly, I wasn't serious!" he cried. Molly was the only girl who scared him, in a physical way. She knew how to fight, and wasn't scared of anything. Particularly not of boys and kicking them in terrible places.

"You _better_ not be serious," said Molly, and withdrew from him, suddenly as calm as she'd been a moment ago.

"The hell, Molly?"

"It's my _dad_. And just because he had his sense of humor surgically removed at birth does not mean he's a prat."

"But you know that during the war—"

"During the war, he fought," said Molly in her most dangerous tone.

"Right, so bugs and Peeves it is!" said Fergus in an overly cheerful tone.

James and Molly turned to him. Fergus grinned maniacally at Molly, smiling defensively the way you're supposed to do when confronted with dangerous animals.

"Um, so I guess we should find Peeves," said James, his voice a little shaky. He shouldn't have brought up the war. If only his mouth would slow down every once in a while to give his brain some time to catch up.

"We'll need the map," said Fergus. "You have it, right James?"

James rifled through his pockets. "Right." He pulled out a gobstopper, a slingshot, a half-eaten and fuzzy chocolate frog, and the wizarding card that had come with it—brandished by a smiling picture of his father. He rummaged further, checked to see that he didn't have other pockets, and then tried again. "Huh. That's funny. I can't find it."

"You lost the Marauder's Map?" exclaimed Molly.

James turned a terrified gaze on her. "No, I don't lose anything, honest! I even gave it a look on the carriage, remember?"

Molly gave him a wary look. It was, after all, true. James was surprisingly responsible for such an irresponsible boy. His room was always tidy—unnaturally tidy, in fact. He was always turned in his assignments on time. And he never lost things. "Are you saying someone nicked it?"

"Yeah," said James in a tone of vague wonder. "I guess I am."


	3. Chapter 3

Gryffindor 77: Yes, Lorcan and Lysander are Luna's kids. I'm glad that there's fewer Weaseleys than there could be, because that would be a nightmare to write. And their ages are just completely wrong. Teddy would be out of Hogwarts and I want him in it, so I've made him a fifth year. And I might be screwing up who's the older or younger sibling. I had originally intended to adhere to canon as much as possible, but I got lazy fast. Scorpius will be Scorpius—it's no fun having everyone be nice. I'm glad you like James and Rose, more on them in the next chapter. Sadie's father is Dean Thomas. I plan to use her to get into that secret backstory Dean Thomas supposedly had, but it will take time.

Blindfaithoperadiva: You'll find out in the next chapter.

Thecrescentmoonwriter: One story is never enough, is it? Sigh.

Blackpants: They're eleven! That will take some time to develop! Rose keeps reading way older than she is but then, she's an evil genius. Oh, and I actually have a little chart for myself to keep the characters straight. But you can look it up on JKR's website. As for my OC's, I guess maybe next chapter I'll put up a chart of who's who and in what year. I've just got to work the story out a bit more to see if I've got everyone I need.

Okay guys, just so you know I am going to work on the next chapter of The Other Hermione right now! Next chap should be up in a few days.

.((0)).

"Victoire."

"Teddy."

"Hi."

"Hello."

"Um—"

"I—"

"Sorry. You go first."

"No, you."

"Erm. Right."

"Right."

"So."

"So."

Teddy sighed. "I'm sorry about James," he said, ruffling his hair, which he suspected was changing color on him. It was, in fact, chartreuse green. "Sorry in general, actually."

"Don't be," said Victoire, smiling nervously.

"I—" Now Teddy's hair was purple.

"Yes?"

"Um. There's this. A meeting I—I'm prefect." His hair had gone past purple to a shocking pink. It was the color he was most embarrassed by.

"Oh," she said, looking rather crushed, which escaped Teddy's observation completely. "But… but—"

"It's very urgent!" managed Teddy, and scrambled past her, running to the boy's toilet, where his worst suspicions were confirmed. He only hoped that his hair hadn't been pink the whole time.

What had he been thinking, kissing Victoire? She hadn't even spoken to him for the whole summer, not that she ever spoke to anyone, with her airs and her French muggle literature and her huge blue eyes and glowing red hair and perfect lips and those freckles on her nose. It had been a moment of madness, on the train. It was just that he hadn't expected her to be in that compartment, no one had seemed to be there, and she had just been _looking_ at him like—like he didn't know what.

Teddy slid down the wall, banging his head against it, willing his hair to turn back to a nice, sensible shade of brown. The best that he got was a dull orange.

Meanwhile, Victoire was headed back to Ravenclaw confused and near tears. How could he not know? She thought he knew. She sighed angrily as she walked down the hall, her eyes trained on the floor as always. It was the damned shyness, as always. And now there was nothing she could do about it.

Victoire knew everyone thought she was a snob. It didn't help that her mother actually was one. It wasn't true in her case, however. She didn't think she was above anyone else. She just couldn't talk to anyone. For as long as she knew, she had been afflicted with a crippling shyness. She couldn't bring herself to join a conversation with anyone (except her father), even if they talked to her. Conversation was an agonizing process for her. She never knew what to say. She had literally sat there with people, scanning her mind for any phrase, any phrase at all, that would simply make sense. About the only thing she ever learned how to do by way of socializing was to compliment girls on their clothes. It was so easy to just say that she liked someone's pin. It was never really out of context, and it was context, after all, that ruined everything. People spoke so _fast_, there was never enough time for her to think of something that fit into the conversation.

And there was the looking. Victoire hated it when people looked at her. The tragedy of it was that they always did. She was the only one of Bill and Fleur's children with the Weasely coloring, _and_ she was clearly of Veela descent. She was stunningly beautiful, and she had bright red hair. It even glowed, of its own accord. It was the kind of thing that made people stare. And there was the look people got. Hatred and lust, for as long as she could remember, she had sensed hatred and lust around her. No one ever looked at her like she was just a person—except for her parents, of course, and her sibings. Even her cousin Roxanne had hated her at first, before she'd started to date Humphrey Wood. Victoire was always, to others, a reason to be jealous, or a thing of beauty. It was probably the reason she was so disabled by her shyness in the first place.

But Teddy didn't look at her like that. He never had. Perhaps it was because he was so close to her family, or because he was odd-looking himself—so much so that he still had to wear wigs and hats in the muggle world—he'd never learned to control his hair. During the Great Weasely Christmas Food Fight of 2005, he had been the only one to throw food at her. It was a glob of mashed potatoes. It landed in her right eye, and made her unreasonably happy. He always asked if she wanted to come along with the other Weasely and Potter children. Once she had seen him telling Molly off for defacing her copy of The Hunchback of Notre Dame with WWW unspellable ink, a prank that had secretly dismayed her but which she'd not been able to even acknowledge. And he always asked what she was reading. Victoire began to watch him, when he wasn't looking.

At the beginning of the summer, the Potter and the Weasely children had gone to the pond near the Scymanders' house with Lorcan and Lysander, as well as Teddy. Victoire had gone along with Dominique and Louis. Her parents insisted that she accompany them whenever they left the house, which Victoire knew was just their way of getting her to socialize more. As usual, she brought a book, and read by an oak tree while the other children, even Rose, who was usually above such things, swam. Roxanne and Lucy had sat by her for a little while, trying to get her to go into the water. Nothing on Heaven or Earth could bring Victoire Weasely to wear a swimming outfit. So Roxanne had gone in on her own, leading a team against Teddy's in a game of water polo. Lucy stayed with her for a while, but she'd eventually gone in, driven by the heat. Victoire was reading the same paragraph over and over again in Stendhal's The Red and the Black when a drop of water fell on the page she was reading.

She looked up. Teddy Lupin stood above her, in his swimming trunks. Wet. His hair was black, and was splayed across his forehead in thick, curly strands. Victoire thought he was the most handsome boy she had ever seen.

"Sorry," said Teddy, scratching the back of his head. "Freddy just threw the ball into the tree, and I've been nominated to retrieve it."

"Oh," she said. How did he manage to be so articulate? She skirted aside and watched him climb up the tree in search of the ball, and realized with a falling stomach that she was completely, utterly in love. She couldn't bring herself to say a word to Teddy for the rest of the summer.

And then, on the train, when he'd come into the compartment like that—what could he want? Why did he come into her compartment? He never sat in her compartment. And she actually had to look him in the eyes again for the first time since she had realized she was in love with him, and she was sure she couldn't hide it at all. Surely it was written all over her face.

It must have been, because the next thing, he was kissing her. It was all she could do not to faint at the time. She'd kept her eyes open, more out of shock than anything, and noticed that even Teddy's eyelashes were the same color as his hair, which was now emrald green. And then his eyes opened, his nice, pretty, warm brown eyes, and laughed, in a way that didn't make her feel bad at all, that made her feel rather giggly herself, and then Teddy had been about to kiss her again, when—

BANG!

"You're snogging!" said James Potter, pointing at them and grinning in triumph. For the second time that day, Victoire nearly fainted. "I'm telling _everyone_!" And then he'd run off.

Teddy gave her a brief, terrified glance, and then ran after him, shouting all the way down the train. Victoire sat down in wonder and spent the rest of the train ride waiting for Teddy to come back. Roxanne came in, followed by Freddy and Louis. As more time passed and Teddy didn't return, she began to kind of hate James Potter. By the time she got to her dormitory that night, she despised him.


	4. Chapter 4

Heya guys—don't worry! I'm working on the Other Hermione's last chapter, sequel to follow. PUT THE KNIVES AWAY. Joking.

So in this (very very long) installment, I follow all the guys I've been bringing up in previous chapters. The next chapter will continue the focusing-on-different-characters thing.

REVIEWERS!

Rosiline—thanks, and thanks for coming over to this story.

Blackpants—I totally laughed out loud at your review. I'm trying to figure out how to get this story past a few years, because we're on Chapter Four and it's still the first day, so… And don't worry, I'm working on the other story. Ten pages so far!

The CrescentMoonWriter—Thanks, that chapter was a little bit lighter. I actually keep on having this scenario of Teddy singing Weezer songs to Victoire as a way of admitting his feelings for her. Might do it. If any of you guys have Pinkerton, listen to Falling for You. Sooooo perfect.

Blindfaithoperadiva—Thanks. I love the word smitten. It rhymes with kitten. It's, like, kitten love. And I'm loving Rose the more I write her.

.((0)).

Albus stood, looking around him in vague horror. Even the Headmistress looked shocked, although she did her best to hide it. He looked over at the remaining first years waiting to be seated. Rose had her hands clasped over her mouth, and was actually shaking her head. Sadie was looking at him in a pitying way, but she was also smiling encouragingly, as if she meant to be saying it wouldn't be so bad. Fred's mouth was hanging open. Louis was frowning at him, but when he caught his eye, he shrugged, and waved. Albus turned to the Slytherins.

Here was a surprise. They actually seemed fairly overjoyed to have him. They were yelling, and waving their arms, and a few of them were even standing. They clapped him on the back as he sat down. He turned and found out that he was sitting next to Scorpius Malfoy. Even Scorpius looked back at him in a fairly neutral, askance way. Albus sighed. And he was going to have to sleep in the same room as him.

He looked back at the chair. It was the Weaselys' turn. Freddy was up first. Roxanne gave him a thumb's up sign from the Gryffindor table, where she was sitting with Teddy and Humphrey and Lucy. The hat took about as long to decide Freddy's fate as it had to decide Albus's. Freddy got Gryffindor. Louis came next. He got Gryffindor, too, and sat by Freddy, who welcomed his cousin with a clap on the back. It just wasn't fair. Albus scanned the table for his brother, but couldn't find him. Or Molly.

Rose was taking her seat on the stool. She gave Albus a half-hearted wave as Headmistress McGonnagal placed the Sorting Hat on her head. "Ravenclaw!" the hat shouted, and Rose's look of concern was replaced by a look of beatific happiness. She practically skipped over to the Ravenclaw table where she joined Lorcan and Lysander. Albus folded his arms. Well, it didn't take much for his family members to forget about his doomful plight.

"Lenore Yates," he heard Headmistress McGonnagal read. He sighed and looked at his knees. It certainly wasn't safe to look at any of his housemates. Merlin, he was going to have to walk with them to the Slytherin Dungeons. He was going to have to sleep in the Slytherin Dungeons. The horrible, slimy, cold Dungeons. He barely heard the hat announce Slytherin. He looked up distractedly to see his new housemate.

She had dark red hair and green eyes. She reminded him a little of a picture he'd once seen of his grandmother. Like her, she had huge eyes and a tiny mouth. Her eyes were hooded as she came over to the table. Albus noticed that there was only a smattering of applause when she joined them; she sat quietly next to him, looking at no one. He felt sorry for her. She probably didn't want to be in Slytherin, either. Who would?

"Who are you?" asked Scorpius.

She turned her head to look at him. Guillaume Zabini was up. Another Slytherin. "Lenore," said the girl.

"Lenore who?"

"Yates," she said, and turned away from him.

Guillaume Zabini actually went to Ravenclaw.

"I don't know that name," said Scorpius in a pensive way. Albus saw Lenore roll her eyes. He smiled.

"Of course you don't. She's probably a mudblood," said someone beside him, a tall thickset boy with a surly jaw. He extended his hand to Scorpius. "Gregory Goyle the tenth. You can just call me The Tenth. Everyone else does."

"Oh, right. Mr. Goyle's son. My father does a lot of business with your father."

"My father told me to look out for you," said the fifth-year.

Albus looked at Lenore again, who looked like she was trying not to cry. "Hi," he said. "I'm Al."

She looked at him suspiciously, saying nothing.

He wanted to tell her he didn't care if she was a muggleborn, that his favorite aunt was a muggleborn, and so was his grandmother, that his Aunt Audrey was a muggle, that he liked to watch television and play video games. He didn't. "Actually, my name is Albus, but I'd really prefer it if you called me Al. Because everyone calls me Albus to make me embarrassed. Because it's an embarrassing name."

His babbling at least produced a smile. "Albus? Like Albus Dumbledore?"

"Yeah," he admitted.

"You should be proud of that name. I was named after a poem."

"Oh, the Edgar Allen Poe one?"

Her eyes widened. "How do you know? He's a muggle author."

"My cousin Rose likes him. He's really gruesome. She kind of likes that."

"Are you—" then her eyes became half-lidded and wary again. "Nevermind," she muttered.

Albus wracked his brain. "I don't want to be here either," he offered at last.

"At least they were happy to get you. I guess you must be a pureblood."

Albus shrugged. "Well, maybe… maybe if we stick together, it will be all right."

She gave him a penetrating look. "Promise?"

Albus nodded, and extended his hand. "Promise." Albus noticed Scorpius eyeing them. Albus ignored him and shook Lenore's hand. If he was going to survive seven years in Slytherin hell, he was going to need allies.

.((0)).

The Slytherin Dungeons were nothing like Albus had expected. They weren't cold, or dark. The common room was high-ceilinged, and the walls were covered in candles. There was an epic fireplace, the largest Albus had ever seen. The upperclassmen had seated themselves around it.

Albus and Lenore found themselves a quiet corner to hide in and decided the smartest thing to do was to wait for everyone to fall asleep before they went to their own dormitories.

"Too bad the dormitories aren't co-ed," sighed Lenore. "I'm sure someone's going to hex me when I'm asleep."

"I wouldn't be much help," said Albus. "I'm not really that good at spells."

"Well, that's what you're here for, isn't it? Even Dumbledore had to study."

"How do you know so much about the wizarding world?" asked Albus.

"I wrote to Headmistress McGonnagal when I got the letter. I asked her to recommend every book she could on the subject, and I went to Diagon Alley early." She sighed for the umpteenth time. "Fat lot of good it did me."

"It'll be OK," said Albus, even though he himself didn't believe it. "My dad said that Slytherin isn't as bad as it seems. He said the bravest man he ever knew was in Slytherin."

"Well, I don't feel very brave," said Lenore.

"Me neither," Albus admitted.

They went to their respective dormitories an hour after the common room had been vacated. Albus had been asleep on the couch when Lenore poked him awake and told him it was time to go. He sighed, and went up the staircase to the boy's dormitory.

The boys were not asleep, as he had hoped. Scorpius and two other boys—Toben Mulciber and Will Nott—were in a circle. Scorpius looked up.

"Um," said Albus.

"Heya, Albus," said Scorpius, giving him a calculating look.

"Um. Hi?"

"I was thinking maybe we've gotten off on the wrong foot."

"Really?" squeaked Albus, hating the fact that he sounded actually hopeful.

"Yeah. After all, your dad is the famous Harry Potter. Even if my dad does hate him."

"Blood traitor," muttered Toben, a dark-haired boy with a surly expression.

"That's the Weaselys," said Scorpius. "And you're not a Weasely, are you, Albus?"

"My mum's a Weasely," said Albus, surprised by his courage. But, after all, it was _mum_. It didn't matter if he was facing the business end of Lord Voldemort's wand—no one had better insult his mum.

"Right, well," said Scorpius. "Nobody's perfect."

"My mum is."

Will laughed at this. "Everyone's mum is perfect," he said, smiling. "And besides, all that pure-blood pride's not in vogue anymore—it's much better politically to side with whoever's in the majority—that's what _my_ mum says." He, unlike Toben, seemed friendly enough. And Scorpius did seem to be trying, even if he did keep accidentally insulting people. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad.

Without warning, the door flew open. Rose was outside of it—or, at least, her head was. It appeared to be floating in mid-air.

"Rose!" cried Albus. "You stole Dad's invisibility cloak!"

Rose pulled the cloak off and stalked into the room, slamming the door shut behind her. "I didn't steal it from your dad, I stole it from your brother. _He_ stole it from your dad, so I don't see why I should be the one to have ethics." She eyed Scorpius Malfoy, and then turned her gaze on the others in the room, Toben and Will.

"Rose!" he said again. "What are you doing here?"

"Making sure you're all right," she said. She glared at the other boys. "Is this lot giving you any trouble?"

"Not really," Albus practically whispered.

"Because I know some really good hexes. And curses. And don't even get me started on the potions—"

"Rose," he begged.

"Just so you know," she said.

"Are you in Slytherin?" asked Will.

"No," she replied, a bit huffily.

"Then how did you get in here?"

She shook the invisibility cloak by way of an answer.

"That's the girl that turned me into a guinea pig," said Scorpius.

"You deserved it," said Rose.

"Sure you're not in Slytherin?" asked Toben.

"I'm in Ravenclaw," she said. She turned to Albus. "Come on, Albus," she said.

"What?" he asked.

"We're going to Hagrid's."

"What?"

"I'll tell Headmistress McGonnegal!" said Scorpius.

"I dare you to," she snarled, tapping her wand against her knee. "I was just reading about this spell that rips people's teeth out of their heads. I think it was called Dent—"

"O.K.! O.K." Scorpius protested.

"What about Filch?" whispered Albus.

She pulled a folded piece of paper out of her pocket and gave it to him—the Marauder's Map. It was the first time Albus had seen it; James could be jealous of his possessions, even when he stole them. "He's in Gryffindor tower right now. With Peeves. I expect he'll be occupied for a while."

"How do you know that?" asked Scorpius suspiciously.

"None of your business," she answered impatiently.

Scorpius stood up and crossed his arms. "That's it. I'm coming with you."

"No, you're not," said Rose.

"You're taking a Slytherin," he said, indicating Albus, "out after hours. If you won't let me go to McGonnegal, I'm going to make sure you don't get Albus in trouble."

"Al," Albus tried to correct.

"We're going to Hagrid's," said Rose, as a manner of discouragement.

"The giant?" asked Scorpius

"He's half-giant," said Rose.

Toben looked impressed despite himself. "Doesn't he have a full Giant for a brother? Who lives in the Forbidden Forest?"

"Yeah. His name's Grawp," said Rose. "My mum told me never to go near him. So now of course I'm determined to get Hagrid to take me to see him." She permitted herself a smile. "She really has no idea how my mind works."

"I've never seen a real Giant before," said Toben, his surliness almost completely gone from his face.

"No one has, idiot," said Scorpius.

"Oh, stop talking," said Rose. "Let's go."

"Fine," said Scorpius.

"Not you," said Rose.

"I'm going."

She sighed in an aggrieved way. "Fine, but it's only me and Albus under the cloak."

Scorpius glared at her for a moment. "All right," he agreed. He looked at Toben and Will for a moment. "We'll be back later."

"We won't wait up," said Toben.

Rose flung the invisibility coat over herself and Albus and guided him towards the door. He tripped over the hem of the cloak almost immediately and Rose managed to catch him before he fell down.

"Wait a minute," said Scorpius, stepping after them into the corridor. "How can I follow you if I can't see you?"

"Figure it out," said Rose.

Scorpius shrugged and reached out towards her voice, and Rose flinched. He clutched at the material as soon as he felt it. "I'll just hang on to you, then."

Albus fell down again. Rose practically growled. She held onto the material firmly with one hand, and Albus's arm with the other, and marched down the hall into the Slytherin Common room and then out of the door.

"How _did_ you get in?" asked Scorpius.

"If you really must know, I just waited by the entrance to Slytherin in the invisibility cloak and waited for someone to say the password. Then I hung around in Ravenclaw until I thought everyone would be asleep. Which obviously was not the case, unfortunately."

"Um, do you think maybe we should be quiet?" whispered Albus.

"Probably," agreed Rose.

Scorpius made a dismissive sound. Still, he didn't say anything until they were on the grounds. And he spoke with good reason, because he'd just spotted another group of people out past curfew.

"Let me under the cloak! Let me under the cloak!" he whispered desperately.

"What?" asked Rose. "Oh. Hang on." She did something underneath the cloak. Scorpius could tell by listening.

"Come on!" he seethed, trying to tug the material out of Rose's grasp. Suddenly, she and Albus appeared.

"Let go," said Rose, having discarded the cloak. "It's just my idiot cousins and Fergus Finnigan."

The Marauders had long since spotted Scorpius, but they were shocked to see other figures emerge from nowhere. There was a silence, and then James called: "Oi! Rose Weasely, what are you doing with my sodding invisibility cloak!"

"Oh, you stole it too!" Rose shouted, walking towards them.

Scorpius rolled his eyes and held out his wand. "Silencio," he said, and a rope of light emerged from his wand. The entire group turned to Scorpius in outrage, while Albus wondered if every single one of them could do magic.

"Do you want us to get caught?" he asked, and the group calmed down. He finited the spell, and everyone began to walk towards the Forbidden Forest.

"What are you doing here?" James demanded of Rose angrily. "And on your first day!"

"Angry that we broke your record?" asked Rose.

"Oh, come on, Rose! What are you doing here—and with him!" he gesticulated wildly at Scorpius.

"I resent that," said Scorpius.

"Oh, I can't help him," said Rose. "He had to come along and keep an eye on Albus. He insisted. Being a member of his house and all."

"Al," said Albus weakly.

"What are you on about?" said James.

"Oh, that's right, you missed your brother's Sorting and weren't there when he was sorted into Slytherin," replied Rose coldly

"WHAT?!" shouted James, Molly, and even Fergus together, in more or less of a unison.

"By the frazzled ends of Merlin's beard," sighed Scorpius, "will you all be quiet?"

"Let's just go to Hagrid's," said Rose. "That's where we were headed."

"And where were you headed?" Scorpius asked James archly.

"None of your business," said James, followed shortly by: "Ow! Rose!"

"Oops, sorry."

"You kicked me."

"I promise not to do it again," she said and smiled sweetly.

"Good."

"If you tell me what you're doing out here."

James scowled at her. Molly failed to restrain a giggle.

"We're getting some things from the forest to play a prank on Gryffindor. We were just going to get some things from the Forbidden Forest."

"Like what?"

"Bugs, mainly. Brainworms and decarids and centitetras and, um, an acromantula."

"A _what_?!" cried Scorpius.

"Just a baby," Fergus qualified.

"It's do-able," said Rose. "But the mother will certainly hunt you down."

"Even if we accio one to us?" asked Molly.

"They can smell their babies from miles away. It will come to wherever you put it."

"Let's put it in Slytherin." James looked at Scorpius. "Oh. Nevermind." He turned away. "Let's stun him and put it in Slytherin."

"What about me?" whimpered Albus.

"Oh!" said James. "Damnit. Why'd you have to get into Slytherin, Al? This ruins so many good pranks."

Albus was too overcome with joy that someone had called him Al to respond.

They had reached Hagrid's door by then. Albus was pretty sure that Hagrid was only being polite waiting for them to knock on the door, because they'd been very loud so far. Nevertheless, he did wait for them to knock (James and Rose jockeying for position), and swung open the door in a fairly intimidating way (although he probably didn't mean to). Albus blinked owlishly up at his figure. "Er—well, I appreciate the show of company and all, kids, but—"

An enormous dog appeared in front of him, copious amounts of drool distended from its jaws. Albus looked at the dog in disgust. This was a mistake. The dog immediately knocked him down, its paws over each of his arms and a thick string of drool suspended directly over his face. Funnily enough, this was a trick James used to do at home.

"Oi! Fang, no!" Hagrid hauled the dog off of Albus and wrestled him inside. "Come on in, you lot!"

They more or less followed him in. Scorpius stood in the doorway for a long time, looking as if he was debating whether or not to flee. Rose saw him, sighed, went over and grabbed him by the arm, shutting the door behind him. "Honestly," she said.

"This place smells," he muttered.

Rose secretly agreed with him, but she was loathe to say so.

"So… what bring so many of yer to my house? Not that I don't appreciate it or nothin', but…"

"Sorry, Hagrid. We started out in two separate groups."

"Ah. And what brings you here?"

"Well," said James, but he was interrupted.

"Hagrid, Albus was sorted into Slytherin," said Rose. James gave her a dirty look, as if _she_ was the one who had sorted him. "Can you do anything? Talk to the Headmistress?"

"Oh," said Hagrid. "They don't—you can't change your sorting, unfortunately. I—I'm sure you'll be all right, Albus, the hat knows what it's doing." He let out a slight sigh. "But I don't envy you the prospect."

"Hey," protested Scorpius. Hagrid gave him a somewhat bewildered look.

"He's a Slytherin," explained Rose.

"Oh. So yer, a, mates with Albus, then there…?" Hagrid finally succumbed to the lack of words.

"Scorpius Malfoy," he said.

"Ah," said Hagrid, as if it explained a thing or two. "Well, I'm sorry and all, Albus. D'ye think ye'll manage?"

"Yeah," said Albus. "I'll be okay. I guess." He wouldn't be okay at all. Why had he just said that?

Hagrid patted him on the shoulder.

James looked at Rose. "I'm just surprised you're not in Slytherin. Tell me you're not in Gryffindor," he said.

"No, my brilliance exceeds my evilness."

"Oh, thank Merlin. I shudder to think of what Gryffindor would be with you in it."

"Several IQ points smarter on the whole, I should think."

"Oh, this is brilliant," James went on happily. "So you're in Ravenclaw."

"Obviously."

"Whenever I don't feel like being patronized by little girls I can just go to Gryffindor and spend time with normal people."

"Hey!

"Um," said Albus.

"What?" James and Rose said in unison. Hagrid looked down at them in amusement.

"What's this?" asked Albus, picking up a green-tinged egg.

"Dunno," said Hagrid placidly. "Yer dad sent it in. They took it off a smuggler, and he thought I might know what it is."

"Shouldn't you send it back? Since you don't know?"

"Bah. I'll find out soon enough."

"Right," said Albus, backing away from the egg.

"See, look! It's wobbling!"

Albus backed even further away. Rose, however, stepped closer. James, seeing this, made a show of moving even closer than Rose.

"Give it some air, James," said Hagrid. "Would you want to the first thing you ever see to be your ugly mug an inch from your head? He'll want his mummy."

"His mummy?" asked James incredulously.

"Me, o'course. I'll be the one raising 'im."

"You don't even know what it is," Scorpius muttered in obvious disapproval.

"Oh, shut it," sighed Molly.

"Yeah, of course Hagrid will keep it," joined in Fergus. "He knows more about magical creatures than anybody."

"More than Newt Scamander?" asked Scorpius with a raised eyebrow. "I doubt it."

"Hey, I'm right here, y'know," growled Hagrid. "And fer yer information, I don't put on airs and say I know more than a fella like Scamander."

"You see," said Scorpius. "Even Hagrid agrees with me."

"Everyone, shut it!" said Rose. "It's hatching!"

Albus was glad everyone else was so keen to crowd in on the egg, because he didn't want to see it at all. Scorpius made a sound of disgust and he was glad not to be seeing it.

"Here it is," said Hagrid.

"Wow," said Molly.

"What is it?" asked James.

"Oh no, it's a bunch of basilisks!" shouted Fergus in a sudden terror.

"Cool it, Fergus, it's not a basilisk," said Hagrid, restraining him by the shoulder. "It's a Naga." He sounded perplexed about this.

Rose noticed this. "Hagrid, don't Nagas only hatch under certain conditions?"

"Yep. So it's peculiar…"

"Who is it?" asked Rose suddenly. Albus stepped into the circle, curiosity overcoming him at last. A relatively large, very strange snake was extending upwards from the fragments of the shell it had emerged from. It had seven cobra heads, each moving independently. The middle-most one leaned forward—towards Albus. No, he thought. Why did snakes always know?

The middle head spoke. "Master."

Oh, no.

"What did it say?" asked Rose. She looked at each of the children in turn.

"Master, the rivers of fate have guided me so that I can serve you."

"Oh, no," said Albus.

"Albus! It's you! You're a parseltongue!" shouted Rose.

Oh, Merlin, no.

"You're a parseltongue?" asked James, looking faint.

"You're a parseltongue?" Scorpius asked admiringly.

"Master," said the Naga.

"No," pleaded Albus. "Please, I'm not your master. Honestly, just—you know, go your own way. I can't possibly—"

"I am powerless on my own," said the Naga.

"What? Powerless? What, um, power do you have?"

"Whoah," said Molly, "he really is a Parseltongue. Who knew he had it in him?"

"No wonder he got into Slytherin," said Fergus.

"Hey!" shouted Albus.

"I have seven powers, one for each facet of my earthly body," said the Naga.

"Oh. That's very interesting," said Albus, trying to ignore the fact that everyone was looking at them. "What are they?"

"That is for you to deduce."

"What?"

"You must discover each of my abilities before I can avail you of them."

Albus looked the Naga in the eye. Well, in the eyes of the middle head. The other heads were sort of bobbing up and down in the background. It was the strangest-looking creature he had ever seen, but he had to admit that in a way it was strangely beautiful.

"Albus," said Rose impatiently. "What is it saying?"

"He's saying that each of his heads has a power, and I have to—like—um, find out what they are?" Albus furrowed his brow. "And then I guess he'll use them?"

"Yes, on your behalf," said Rose. "You're his master, now. Nagas only hatch in the presence of a parseltongue, and they serve that wizard for life."

Albus made a small noise. "I don't think I'm ready for that kind of responsibility yet."

"Well," said Fergus philosophically. "You've definitely got the best familiar in the whole school. Imagine you walking around with that great brute slithering along behind you. It'll strike fear into the hearts of everyone."

"It strikes fear into the heart of me," Albus pointed out.

"You'll be the coolest kid in Slytherin," said Scorpius.

"You know," said Hagrid thoughtfully. "He actually makes a pretty good celebration present for getting into Slytherin."

"So it's a he?" asked Albus.

"Actually," started Rose, but James clapped a hand over her mouth.

"Um, Mr. Naga Snake Person?"

"You have the right to name me," said the Naga patiently.

"Right. I guess I will. But… what do you eat?"

"Meat. Small animals, mostly."

"Oh. OK." Albus reverted to English. "He says I can name him."

"Bruiser," said Fergus, instantly.

"Spike," said Molly.

"I-Will-Eat-You-Alive. That way every time you call for him you can shout 'I will eat you alive!'" This was James' idea. Obviously.

"I like Thaddius," said Rose.

"You could call it Nagini Jr.," said Scorpius. There was an offended silence, which was what he'd been going for, so he was happy.

"Not funny, Malfoy," said James.

"Well, it's funny, don't you think? I wonder why Lord Voldemort had that rather useless snake of his instead of a Naga?"

"The snake wasn't useless," said Rose dispassionately. "It was a horcrux. Besides, Naga are very rare. Did you say Uncle Harry gave this to you, Hagrid?"

"Yep," said Hagrid. "Got it from a smuggling case he was working on with yer dad."

"Do you think he knew what it is?" asked Rose.

"If he knew what it was, Dad would have given it right to Albus," said James.

"That's true," she conceded. "We should write him about this."

"I reckon," said James uncertainly.

A sudden knock at the door disrupted the group. "Oh no," said Fergus. "Where'll we hide?"

"It's Teddy!" came an exasperated voice from the other side of the door. The Naga slithered over to Albus and coiled the lower half of its body in a puddle next to him.

Hagrid opened the door. Teddy stepped inside and doubled back in surprise. "Oh, for the mercy of Merlin's underpants! I saw you lot head out—" pointing to James and Molly and Fergus. He shook his head, which was transitioning from marigold to violet, breaking off. "So has the Marauders doubled its growth?" he asked Rose. "And to think I was actually going to come here and cover for you. Now I'll have to take you all in." Silence greeted his proclamation. Now he had time to notice the Naga beside Albus. "Um, Al? Don't freak out or anything, but there's some, uh, snakes by you." The Naga, curious, rose and revealed its multi-headed form. "Holy—what _is_ that thing?"

"This here is, er, a um, Naga," said Hagrid.

Terry stared at it for nearly a full minute. "Oh," he said finally.

"It's Al's new pet," James volunteered. "Did you know he got into Slytherin?"

"Yes, em, er—I was at the Sorting." Teddy looked, again, at the Naga. He looked as if he wouldn't be uncomfortable running away from it. "Very appropriate, I… suppose." He looked at Albus. "Do you think maybe you should run it by the Headmistress before you take it into the school?"

"Oh, Nagas are harmless," said Hagrid. "Snakes always get a bad reputation—they're just misunderstood, the poor creatures."

"Riiiiight," said Teddy skeptically. He looked over at the group. "Well, we'll be going over to McGonnegal's office anyway, so—"

"No!" cried James. "Teddy, you _can't_, you'll ruin the _prank_!"

"You just ruined it by telling me there was one, James," Teddy pointed out. "Consider it a lesson learned."

"But—"

"I'm prefect this year, James! I can't ignore you any more." He sighed. "Thanks for looking after them, Hagrid."

"Why doesn't Hagrid get in trouble?" asked Scorpius.

Teddy stared at him a moment, not certain what to make of his presence among the rest. "It's terribly complicated," he managed, and decided to take that moment to leave.

Rose sidled up to James and whispered something into his ear. The other children followed Teddy, Molly and Fergus in the lead. Rose and James stuck to the back as they continued their whispered conversation.

"What are you on about?" asked Scorpius, and was rewarded with a shushing from Rose.

She regarded him for a moment and then whispered: "I think we can still do the prank. I've got the Invisibility Cloak."

"Are. You. Insane?" seethed Scorpius. James' expression matched Scorpius's words pretty thoroughly.

Rose arched an eyebrow and curled her lips up. "Are you saying that you would pass up the opportunity to pull a gigantic prank on all of Gryffindor? Think of the reputation it would give you."

"I knew you'd lead us on the path to darkness!" said James. "How can you involve him?"

"You know Teddy won't let you out of Gryffindor tonight. Clearly it's up to us," she explained matter-of-factly.

"You're not going to involve Albus?"

"Now that he has a Naga? Of course I'll involve him."

"Oi," called Teddy over his shoulder. "What's going on back there?"

"Nothing," said James.

"I hope so," grumbled Teddy. "For your sake."

The children followed Teddy back into Hogwarts. Rose looked wholly unconcerned, but Albus was beginning to realize it might be time to panic. What would mum and dad say if _both_ him and James were in trouble on the first day of school?

Teddy halted so abruptly that Fergus bumped into him. Albus looked around him and saw Victoire Weasely, holding a bar of chocolate and looking vaguely guilty.

"Teddy," she said weakly.

"Victoire," he responded, equally weakly.

"Oh, good, she _never _gets in trouble," said Molly.

"Um," said Teddy.

"What are you doing up, Victoire?" asked James cheekily. "Waiting for Teddy so you can sn—" luckily Rose had put her hand on his mouth.

Victoire raised her hand half-heartedly. "Chocolate," she managed. It was what girls needed when boys kissed them and then refused to acknowledge that they had done so. She remembered at this point that she was angry at James, but eye contact was about as elusive to her as talking was, so a glare was out of the question.

Scorpius had his arms folded. "Wow, you've really got a good haul," he drawled to Teddy. "I bet taking this many people to the Headmistress's on your first day is some kind of record."

"Um," Teddy repeated, not taking his eyes off Victoire.

"Can we go already?" asked Molly.

"Victoire," said Teddy. "Just, um—don't do it again, okay?" She stared at him, uncomprehending.

"Bullocks!" shouted Molly. "No fair, if we get in trouble she gets in trouble—"

"She's older," said Teddy.

"It's still against the rules," Scorpius pointed out.

Teddy glared at him.

"Not that I'd ever tell Headmistress McGonnagal that you'd let a student break the rules just because you've got a great big obvious crush on her."

Teddy's face was very, very red now. "You little—what is your name?"

"Scorpius Malfoy."

"His dad hates all of humanity, apparently," added Rose.

"As I was saying, I would never tell McGonnagal about your attempt to flout the rules you're supposed to uphold. So long as you're _fair_. For instance, you could let us go."

Anger and embarrassment were currently having a world war on Teddy's face. Finally, he let out an explosive sigh. "Fine!" he shouted. "I give up! I knew I should never have agreed to be prefect!" He brushed past the entire group and began to stomp up the stairs. It seemed to Albus that he was trying to get away from Victoire as soon as possible. And he seemed to be the only one to notice the expression on her face as she watched Teddy walked away.

James turned to Scorpius, impressed. "That was pretty cool. So you want to join in on our prank?"


	5. Chapter 5

Yeah, yeah, I know you want your last chapter. But this one is already finished, so (oh, and people don't get mad by my Slytherin-bashing in this chapter, I'm just telling it like a muggleborn in this situation would)…

Blindfaithoperadiva—I've made a few changes to the last chapter, couldn't find the instance of Terry—I keep calling Scorpio Draco, I need to stop writing while drunk. Friends do not let friends write drunk. But it's so fun. I understand the appeal to Hemingway. Anyway—well, I'm glad you like the pace, but now I'm coming up with a pretty interesting storyline for Year 2. My God, I am addicted to fanfic writing. It will never stop.

Blackpants—I don't know why I'm so happy you're reading this. I guess your handle makes me think you'd only read my T/Hr fic. Why is that?

Rosiline—Yeah, he didn't name it. It will be named. I know the name. You will know it.

The Crescent Moon Writer—Oooh, so happy you like my Rose. My Rose is definitely inspired by Nerys's Rose in Masters of Manipulation—I've totes used her favorite line and everything. And I'm glad you see that she has all those fun House qualities. She's my favorite so far, for sure. And yeah, I guess I'll just let you know that what's interesting to me about Albus is he's not very powerful magically. I don't plan on having some big crazy reveal of superpowers—he just has not lucked out. But... he is a Parselmouth, and now he has a very powerful pet. As for the muggleborn—I think you'll like her as well. She's a bit more Slytherinish than she realizes.

5redroses—I like the idea too, as much as fanfiction writers love to give Slytherins magical pet snakes. Alby reminds me of that creepy guy on Big Love. Just so you know.

.((0)).

Lenore Yates hated Hogwarts. Her fears had proven perfectly justifiable, and she had been hexed her first night in. She woke up with green skin—Albus had tried to comfort her by saying it matched her eyes—and it didn't help that her only friend in her house now had a seven-headed snake for a pet, although she got used to its presence more quickly than she thought she would.

Madame Pomfrey gave her "medicine" that made her vomit all the green out of her skin. She was definitely going to have to look into defensive spells for the evil harpies that populated her dormitory room.

Lenore believed firmly that the people responsible for the Hogwarts Houses should be assassinated. Resurrected and assassinated, if need be. It was bad enough to sleep in the same room as three girls who already knew nasty hexes, and who insisted on making her as uncomfortable as possible when conscious. They were also in all of her classes. And why did no one sit at other tables? She was stuck with Slytherins even during meals. She didn't like the way they chewed.

She despised Slytherins. All of them, except for Albus. And why was he friends with Scorpius Malfoy, who had gone out of his way to insult her the previous day, and who looked at her as if she was a glass of spoiled milk?

Also, she'd discovered that morning that muggle technology didn't work inside magical boundaries. Her laptop was useless, and she'd only managed to get it in the beginning of that summer. She'd stolen it from a college near the orphanage, which had required a lot of planning and sleeping inside of deserted buildings—Lenore didn't really think of stealing as wrong. She had no money and no parents, and it just didn't make sense to be a complete ascetic in order to avoid taking things from people who could simply replace them again. And seeing as how she couldn't buy anything in the first place it seemed awfully silly for people to moan about having to replace something with the scads of money they had lying around. And now that she'd spent the whole summer downloading software and shareware and started to teach herself to hack, her computer didn't work. And she couldn't check to see if the magical interference had broken the whole darn computer—and she couldn't contact Rex by e-mail. She was going to have to figure out the owl system before he got worried.

She couldn't find her way around the school at all. She tried to follow her classmates but they, being Slytherins, always managed to lose her. And the stairs kept changing. And the hallways and corridors followed no particular order. She was late to every class she didn't follow Albus to—and the teachers had all yelled at her. In class it was hard to concentrate because the Slytherin girls kept whispering insults and throwing things at her. Also, it was rather hard to write with quills, and they were scratchy.

And now it was after dinner and she was _somewhere_ in Hogwarts, only she wasn't sure where, and she didn't know how to get to the Slytherin dungeons. She paced back and forth. Why were there no windows anywhere? That might help her get a better sense of direction. Also, it would provide her with something to break. Right now, she would like nothing better than to break things.

She looked to her side. Had that door been there before? She'd been pretty sure there were no doors in this hallway. She looked at the door in curiosity. Well, she was in a magical school. It probably had something interesting behind it.

.((0)).

James, meanwhile, was enjoying the best first day of his life. Everyone in Gryffindor tower had woken up to floors completely covered in spiders, decarids, and brainworms, as well as several unidentifiable and satisfyingly slimy insects. It had been evacuated and left to Filch to clean up. James was willing to temporarily suspend his opinion of Scorpius Malfoy after he'd shown up with Rose and Albus and three sackfuls of pests from the Forbidden Forest. He was also chuffed that Scorpius had embarrassed Teddy about being in love with Victoire, since Teddy had boxed his ears on the train for telling everybody about them snogging.

Classes went well and were interesting—James was naturally bright and did much better than his father had in school. And Kingsley Shacklebolt was Defense Against Dark Arts professor this year, which was amazing. James and Fergus had already made a poster of Shacklebolt and hung it in the Gryffindor dormitories. And Professor McGonnagal (who was the first Head of Hogwarts to continue teaching her classes—she was a teacher first) had agreed to Animagus Lessons, which he had been begging her for since his first day of Hogwarts.

He was planning on spending a bit of time in the Candy Laboratory—Fergus had invented a lollipop that changed flavors the more you sucked on it, and James was pretty sure he could sell it to Uncle George and Ron, which meant the Marauders could finally set up a Prank Fund. Only when he got to the Room of Requirement, there was already a door there, and it hadn't been closed properly.

.((0)).

It was like a dream come true. The room was full, absolutely full, of glass things—dishes, plates, vases, boxes. They were itching to be broken. And she had just learned how to repair things with her wand. Reparo. She'd done it three times in Flitwick's class. After she looked behind her, Lenore entered the room. She narrowed her eyes at her tie and realized that no one could tell her off for removing it. She undid the knot with grim satisfaction and left it puddled on the floor. So what if the colors _did_ suit her?

She extended her hand, took a glass firmly in hand, and dropped it to the floor. The sound it made smashing was somehow soothing. She pointed her wand at it. "Reparo," she said, and watched in satisfaction as the glass came back together in the light she cast through her wand.

She supposed she should be happy school was turning out so badly for her. This way, she knew it was real. It would have been too good for her to have gotten a get-out-of-the-orphanage-free pass, with a side order of magic. There had to be something—in this case, the whole issues with muggles and mudbloods. She was deeply worried that they might be right, that she might not be good enough. So far, she seemed to be on par with everyone except for Rose. Perhaps she ought to start reading as much as Rose seemed to. She suddenly felt an irrational surge of hatred for the girl, with her wizarding upbringing and enormous family. It was the kind of family that had filled her childhood fantasies. Albus was so lucky to have so many built-in friends. All she had was Rex.

This made her take a vase and smash it against a wall. Somewhat heartened, she took an entire stack of dishes and threw them to the ground. That was better. She smiled—this was what a magic school should be more like. She took a glass, spun around, and aimed it for the door—where a tallish boy with glasses was watching her in amusement.

He stopped the glass in mid-air, causing it to hover in front of her. She watched at him for a long, penetrating moment, out of breath and guilty. The boy smiled wickedly, his brown eyes flashing behind his glasses—he suddenly looked an awful lot like Albus. He went over to a shelf, pulled a porcelain serving bowl off of it, and smashed it on the floor. Then he stood back and looked at her, as if waiting for a response. She smiled tentatively, and took a very ugly vase from a shelf, and smashed it.

"Good one," said James.

"Thanks," she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. James took a dish and threw it against the wall. She laughed, and took a glass teapot, and shattered it on the floor. James launched a series of champagne glasses at the ceiling. He turned to her, laughing.

"I never knew anyone else used the Breaking Stuff Room. Even Molly and Fergus don't know about it."

Lenore shrugged. "I just walked by and it was here."

"Yeah," said James, cocking his head and looking at her closely. "That explains it. You don't know what this room is, do you?"

"The Breaking Stuff Room, isn't it?"

"Well, yeah. But more importantly, it's the Room of Requirement." He gestured around him. "This room changes depending on what you want. If you want a room to hide something in, a room appears for you to hide stuff in—for some reason, half the stuff in it is burnt, though, and it smells bad. Anyway, you wanted to break things and walked by the door on accident."

"Oh."

"What's your name?"

"Lenore."

James extended his hand. "James Sirius Potter, leader of the Marauders."

"Oh."

"I take it you haven't heard of us."

"No."

"Well, you will if you stick around long enough."

"Yeah," said Lenore. "Maybe I shouldn't, though."

"Shouldn't what?"

"Stick around."

"Around Hogwarts?"

"Yeah."

"Why not?"

"Well, to start with, I got Sorted into Slytherin." James visibly reacted to this, paling and actually taking a step back. "And to end with, I'm a mudblood."

"Muggleborn," James corrected automatically. He had recovered upon hearing the second piece of information.

Lenore looked at him in some surprise.

"What?" he said.

"Oh," she said, with a look of sudden realization. "Potter. You're related to Harry Potter, aren't you?"

James had a slightly disappointed look to his face. "Yeah, he's my father." It would be nice to be known as the Leader of the Marauders. But he guessed his reputation couldn't possibly precede him that far.

"Is Albus your brother?"

"Yeah."

"So I guess you don't care about muggleborns."

"Oh, yeah, my whole family is a pack of blood traitors."

"Your whole family?"

"My cousins and aunts and uncles and my grandparents and great-grandma."

"Huh."

"What about your parents?"

"Oh. I'm an orphan." She said it defiantly, daring him to say something pitying, and James understood immediately not to.

"My dad was an orphan, too."

"Oh, yeah."

"So's Teddy."

This made Lenore laugh. "Well, there's lots of redheads in the world, too, would you like to name every one of them?"

"Well, there's my sister Lily, of course. Actually, there's a lot of redheads in my family. And there's you."

"Ah."

"There are no Slytherins, though—except for Albus."

"I guess you're in Gryffindor, huh?"

"Yeah," he grinned, not bothering to hide his pride in the fact. He did sober his smile after a moment, though. "Is Slytherin awful?"

"_Horrible_," said Lenore, and he laughed. It made her feel a little better to talk to someone who hated her house as much as she did.

"Is it cold and slimy in the dungeons?"

"No, actually. We have a really great fireplace. The problem is that Slytherins live there. The girls in my dormitory dyed my skin green last night."

"You don't say? I did that to Albus once, only I did him pink. Huelolus."

"Madame Pomfrey gave me horrible medicine."

"I don't doubt it. Hey, I know a spell to make you vomit slugs."

"You do?" asked Lenore eagerly, the possibilities clear already.

"Yeah. Blugolius."

"Is there a particular wand movement?"

"Just the old swish and flick," said James, demonstrating with his own wand.

"Wow, you actually made it whistle through the air."

"Well, I am pretty amazing."

This and the accompanying pose made Lenore break down into giggles. When she recovered she said, "Well, I'll definitely use this on the evil ickle Slytherkins."

"If only muggle technology worked in this school, I'd ask you to tape it."

"Oh, I know! My laptop won't work."

"Your what?"

"My computer. It was really, really hard to come by—" she stopped herself from admitting she'd stolen it, since rich kids never understood things like that—"and now it's useless."

"What exactly do you use computers for? That's what I never understood. All this sending messages when you already have Fellytones—"

"Telephones."

"Sorry, it's my grandpa's influence. But what's the point? Half the time I just see people reading things or looking at pictures."

"Or watching movies or listening to music."

"Well, yeah, but you have those video players and record players."

"What century are you in?" asked Lenore. "Wow, you wizards really don't have a clue about anything, do you? But the point of computers for most people is it's everything in one place. I guess the owls are interesting and all, but it's not a simple matter of pushing a few buttons, is it?"

"Oh, yeah, we have to walk all the way over to the Owlery," James said sarcastically.

"And you have to write your message out on parchment instead of typing—I absolutely hate the fact that I have to write out school essays longhanded, by the way—and then you have to curl it up and seal it with wax—it's a pain. Computers make everything efficient."

"Do you not like the wizarding world?" asked James, curious.

"No it's just—well, it's just that I like the muggle world. And here, I can't have it."

"Huh. I guess that is too bad. And you can't go to Hogsmeade yet, can you?"

"No. Why?"

"There's a muggle town about a mile away from Hogsmeade. Me and Molly and Fergus have been."

"Really?"

"Yeah." James itched his chin absently. Usually this was the sign of an impending good idea. "You know, actually, you can get to Hogsmeade through a secret passageway."

"Maybe I do love the wizarding world, if their schools have secret passageways," said Lenore.

"Do you want to go next weekend?" asked James.

"Really?"

"Yeah, of course. You can teach me about computers."

Lenore smiled and realized she was happy for pretty much the first time since she'd come to Hogwarts. "O.K.," she agreed.

"It _is_ against the rules," he warned her.

"Aren't Slytherins supposed to be the rule-breakiest house?"

James smiled again. "Well, I think we've had a competition going on with you for the past couple hundred years on that one."

"Until we meet again, then," said Lenore with a broad smile.

Lenore went away thinking that Gryffindor must really be the best house, after all. James went away thinking that Lenore would be a really pretty girl when she grew up.


	6. Chapter 6

I promised this before, but here is a rundown of the Characters.

The Potter family: These guys you know, Harry and Ginny's kids: Albus, James, and Lily. Lily isn't at Hogwarts yet.

Ron and Hermione's kids: Rose and Hugo-- Hugo is younger, I know, I know.

The part Veelas: Victoire is the eldest; Louis has entered with the first-years (he's in this chapter). Dominique is the littlest; she's Lily's age.

The cool kids: George and Angelina Johnson's kids. Roxanne is the oldest, and is dating Humphrey Wood; she's Teddy's age, and a good friend of his (I know, I know, the ages are completely effed but it would be weird to have Teddy SO much older than everyone). Then there's Freddy, also much-discussed in this chapter.

Percy and Audrey's kids: Audrey is a muggle, which tickled her father-in-law to bits. They have two daughters: Lucy is the quiet one, Molly is the hellion.

Luna's kids: Lorcan and Lysander Scymander. Best freaking names EVAR. I think they'll show up in the next chapter.

The singles: Some are mine, some are JKR's. There's Sadie, daughter of Dean Thomas, Fergus Finnegan, Humphrey Wood, Teddy Lupin, Priti Patil (Indians often marry people with the same family names, that's my justification), Scorpius Malfoy, and a few others-- they'll come up as they come up. Clear things up?

REVIEWER REPLIES

Rosiline: thankee, very much.

Mrs. James Potter: Well, they're young yet, but...

Blackpants-- Oh, your handle is your internet name. A very emo internet name, in fact! Joking. Yeah, Lenore is very emo-- hey, there's a reason she's in Slytherin. But she has had a tough life and thinks about things a bit differently, really in the only way that's reasonable to coming from where she has. And glad you like it, I wouldn't normally be into reading a next generation fic myself.

TheCrescentMoonWriter: Borrower my bum, the girl's a straight up theif! This will come in handy to James, mind you.

5redroses: Yeah, I think the Breaking Stuff Room is about as eloquent as you'd get from a James. And I dunno if Harry will ever tell him about the fiendfyre-- I just like to drop the occasional allusion to the canon.

blindfaithoperadiva: I'm addicted to romance. What can I say?

Queen Nightingale: sorry it took so long, but here it is.

Chapter 6

.((0)).

Freddy and Louis were a fairly unlikely pair of friends. Louis was very good-looking and very conscious of it—he looked like a blonde Bill, although he had his mother's icy eyes. A month away from twelve, he already had a slouching tallness. He was picky about the way he dressed and horrible at sports. Freddy, however, shared most of his family's Quidditch mania. And he was _cool_. He had a reddish-brown Afro of hair and had worn horn-rimmed glasses since childhood. It gave him a signature look. He had the coolest parents of any of the Weasley and Potter cousins, it was generally agreed—George, owner of the foremost joke shop in history, and Alicia Johnson, who played in the Holyhead Harpies and who was the grown-up you could depend on to do fun muggle things—movies, water parks, and carnivals. Freddy was one of those people who was good at anything they try, whereas Louis was willfully ignorant of anything he didn't like and eschewed anything he thought of as overly childish.

What they shared was a love of music. Louis had been playing the piano practically since infancy. He had never been pushed into it. His favorite childhood past-time had been to sit on his mother's piano bench and play with the keyboard. He was something of a virtuoso, but the family wasn't well-versed enough on muggle culture to send him to recitals. When Molly had entertained them one Christmas with her mother's old Muggle rock records, Louis had fallen in love. He wasn't the only one. Freddy was the one who wrote down all the names of the bands and got his mother to bring them both to a muggle record store—Aunt Hermione, Angelina, and Audrey had come along.

The record store clerk had seen potential good taste in the boys and recommended a list of things, and luckily for the boys, it was Christmas. And they were with three women who loved muggle music. They went home with a solid library of glam rock, punk rock, indie, garage, and classic. Freddy began to beg for a guitar, which he received on his birthday. Ever since, they had been playing together. Freddy hadn't quite caught up to Louis in terms of skill, but he had a latent ability and an amazing grasp of timing. He could also sing fairly, which Louis couldn't. The both of them had been looking forward to Hogwarts for three years pretty much entirely on the promise of starting a band. Two people just weren't enough. They definitely needed a drummer and possibly a singer. They both agreed a girl singer would probably be best.

So, a week into their first year at Hogwarts, Freddy and Louis put up a poster advertising a Gryffindor-wide audition of musicians and singers. They hung it next to the poster of Kingsley Shacklebolt that James and Fergus had adhered to the common room poster board. They had stayed up all night trying to think of names for the band to no avail, so the poster rather lamely read: "BAND AUDITIONS".

A fourth year pointed at it. "Band of what?" he asked.

"A music group," explained Freddy.

"Well, why didn't you just say that?"

"Can't you see the music notes on the poster?" asked Louis.

A few more people had gathered around the poster. Molly appeared briefly, saw the poster, rolled her eyes, and walked over to where James and Fergus were sitting in the Gryffindor common room.

"Are you trying to be the Weird Sisters or something?" asked a second year.

"The Weird Sisters?" Louis asked with a curled lip and a universe worth of incredulity. "That's what our parents listen to, and besides, it's wizarding music. To be frank, Wizarding Music is the pants."

"What are you, a muggle?"

"He's got a point," said Freddy. "Listen and learn." He tapped a box that he'd gotten Teddy to charm to play music on. They had decided to start with the Beatles, because they were, after all, the Beatles. Freddy had rallied for Old Brown Shoes over the more classic choices, and had talked Louis out of Eleanor Rigby. The box popped open and started playing—it was funny, Freddy was convinced that even a magical recording didn't match the sound of vinyl. But still, Old Brown Shoes sounded good, and he could see it catching on in everyone's faces. He followed it up with Jerry Lee Lewis to appease Louis, T Rex (Telegram Sam), The Velvet Underground, Lee Scratch Perry (Louis insisted—he was crazy about reggae), and finally, just to blow everybody's mind, The Sex Pistols (what else? Anarchy in the U.K.). Quite a large group had gathered by then. Roxanne came by with Humphrey, smiling.

"Freddy, I thought it was you. Starting the band already?"

"I hope so."

"Play some Weezer."

"I'm so tired of Weezer," Freddy whined to his sister. Roxanne was demonically obsessed with the group, and had insisted on hearing them so much that Freddy was no longer able to enjoy them, which was sad, since he'd started out really liking them.

"You're the only one," she pointed out, smiling, and everybody did look curious.

Freddy sighed and tapped the box again, which immediately jumped up and started to bob along with the song.

Teddy came along and Freddy knew it was a lost cause. He was always over the house since he was such good friends with Roxanne, and had become even worse than her in taking over the CD player—so much so that Freddy had finally cashed in his savings and got the record player he always wanted, an act Louis had quickly imitated. And Teddy had been the one to charm the box in the first place. Within half an hour the Gryffindor Common Room had become a strange discotheque—wizards were used to sitting around the wizarding wireless, and it didn't occur to them to dance at all.

"At least they like muggle music," said Louis.

"Yeah, but now that they have the box, what use will they have for a band?" asked Freddy.

.((0)).

Albus still hadn't really gotten used to the Naga. It had followed him everywhere when he first got it, and he had to ban it from the loo. Then he realized he couldn't be under the constant surveillance of seven pairs of snake eyes all day, so he had banned it from the Library, on the grounds that Madame Pince forbade him. Which was a lie. He wondered if the Naga could tell, but it had just seemed to accept it.

Rose kept on nagging him to work out which powers its seven heads had, but Albus had already asked the Naga for the only power he wanted—magic.

"You already have magic," said the Naga's central head, blinking at him.

"But I'm no good at it. Can't you help me get better? Like a studying skill or something?"

"Studying is not a power latent within us either."

"Latent?" What does that mean?"

"Hidden, but waiting to be activated by the veracity of your guess."

"Right. Of course. Whatever veracity is."

"The correctness of your guess will activate the power."

"And will you have it, or me?"

"We both will."

"Really? That's pretty cool."

"I am glad you approve."

"Yeah," said Albus, sighing, who didn't see the point of being able to do anything but magic.

Instead, he had decided to follow Rose's cue and study. Rose was _amazing_ at magic. Sure, she read all the time and knew everything, but that didn't fully account for her performance in class. Albus had yet to see her try a spell more than once to correctly cast it. Within five tries she'd cast a spell exactly as well as the professor, and sometimes she was able to cast a spell better. When they were turning teacups into gerbils Rose had gotten bored and started changing teacups into different sorts of teacups—porcelain to quartz to glass, patterns shifting sometimes repeated as she changed from the one material to the other. He had seen Professor McGonnagal watching her from the desk with an intense look on her face. He supposed it shouldn't be a surprise, considering Aunt Hermione.

Lenore, too, was keen to improve via studying, and she was similarly impressed by Rose's skills. So they had formed a daily study group with Rose at the library, and Lenore and Albus had secretly vowed to use Rose as their benchmark. They wouldn't leave until she did. Even if it killed them. She was late to their current meeting. The Naga was curled at Albus's feet.

"Still no name?" asked Lenore vaguely, poring over their potions homework. Potions was Lenore's worst subject, which wasn't terribly surprising to her, considering she was a terrible cook. Not that she cooked all the time, but at the orphanage you had to make your own food if you wanted more than the standard three meals (which were uniformly horrible). Rex was an amazing cook, and she reasoned he would probably be pretty amazing at potions too, if he had any magical ability.

"No name, no powers," Albus replied.

"Why don't you name it one of those Latin names you wizards are so fond of?"

"You're a wizard, too, you know," pointed out Albus.

"Actually, I'm a witch," she said, but she was smiling. Both Albus and James were very allergic to any form of muggle prejudice, and each time it was evidenced Lenore was terribly pleased.

Albus turned back to his Transfiguration homework. "Decribe the three laws of inanimate object to live object transfiguration." He sighed. It was all very well to know the laws, but he didn't see how that would help him. _His_ teacup had simply grown a tail. Gerbils didn't even have tails, and the tail had been porcelain.

"Like Septimus," she said, chewing thoughtfully on her quill.

Albus stared at her. "That's perfect."

"It is, isn't it? You could name every one of its heads: Primus, Secundus, Tertius, Quartus, um… um… what's Latin for five?"

"No idea."

"Oh, that woman in Derry, she had—what was it? Cinquets, that's it. So, Cinqus. Six is Hexus."

"Hex," said Albus. "That's a great name, I'd like to know what his power is."

"And Septimus is the seventh."

"So what do I call them all?"

Lenore shrugged. "Just Septimus, I guess. You should give that name to the one in the middle, he's the only one who talks."

"That's true," Albus admitted. He became suddenly pre-occupied when he saw Sadie Thomas walk by with another girl. She had gone into Gryffindor, and was in about half of his classes, but he hadn't been able to bring himself to say one word to her. Mainly this was because she had screamed when she first saw the Naga—Septimus. Ever since, Albus occasionally caught her giving it wary glances. She wasn't alone in her reaction; even people in Slytherin were afraid of it. Lenore turned to see who he was looking at.

"Who's that?" she asked.

"Sadie Thomas," he said, scribbling out the beginnings of a response to his homework. "I met her on the first day."

"Gryffindor, isn't she?"

"Yup."

"She's really pretty."

Albus looked up. She was about to have a Madame Pince experience; she must have been talking too loudly with her friend. Sadie was wearing her hair down today. It was long and very very curly. Unlike Aunt Hermione's hair, however, her curls weren't frizzy, but neat. She had large, liquid black eyes, and the kind of delicate face that promised unearthly beauty when she grew up. Albus didn't really trust himself to say whether or not she was pretty.

Luckily, Rose had come. She walked over to them and threw a heavy book onto a table, making Albus jump a meter into the air. Lenore snickered. "Mum finally sent that book I asked her for," Rose said. Albus looked at it. It was green, and the pages were yellow and water-logged. Magical Snakes of Southeast Asia was its title. "It's got Nagas in it."

"Oh," he said.

"Hey Len," said Rose. Lenore and Rose had immediately recognized kindred spirits in each other. Perhaps it was the thief in them. If Albus had known they were thieves he'd be very worried; he'd been highly disturbed at Molly's reports that Rose stole things. So much so that he'd taken her aside at the nearest opportunity and asked her about it. Rose had narrowed her eyebrows and professed to hate her family, and then, after a long silence, admitted, "I put them back later. I just like to see that I _can_." Then she made him swear never to tell anyone that she'd said anything about it.

"Hiya," said Lenore. "We've got a name for him. The snake."

"It's not a he," said Rose. "Every head has a different gender."

"Really?" said Lenore. "That's kind of gross. If you start to think about it."

"What's the name?" she asked.

"Septimus."

"Deadly," said Rose with an appreciative grin.

"Lenore thought of it," said Albus.

"Good one," she said. "It's friends with you forever, now."

"The snake?"

"The Naga."

Lenore considered this. "I have a feeling I'm going to appreciate that a lot more later. It's kind of weird now."

"It's a beautiful animal, very special."

"Said Hagrid," joked Albus.

"Shut it," Rose replied. "Where they come from, snakes are worshipped. People don't think of snakes like they do here. Wizards think they're descended from the King of Snakes in Southeast Asia. The Wizarding School in India is called the Three Cobras Institute. Honestly, it's strange that Voldemort didn't go there, with his love of snakes. I wonder if Slytherin did?"

Albus stared at her. "Sometimes I think you really should be in Slytherin."

Rose gave him an exasperated look. At this point Scorpius appeared behind Rose.

"Do you have notes from Potions?" he asked. Rose and Lenore both glared at him. They were united in their hatred of Scorpius, especially after Lenore told Rose about how he always ignored her when he talked to Albus, never greeting her or speaking to her unless she spoke. Scorpius didn't really care about Lenore's opinion, but for some reason, Rose's dislike was annoying.

"Um," said Albus.

"Why don't you take notes?" asked Rose.

Scorpius arched his eyebrow at her. "I cut my finger."

"It's true," said Albus.

"Don't you know basic health magic?" asked Rose witheringly. "Episky? Ring a bell?"

"That's a seventh-year-spell."

"Oh, come on! How many times did your mom use Episky on you when you scraped your knee?"

"Oh, excuse me, you insufferable know-it-all, I don't know _every spell there is_."

"Nor do I. But I know Episky, and so does my 10-year-old brother."

"You're eleven."

"I'm twelve in two weeks."

"Twelve?" Scorpius sniffed. "Why didn't you go to Hogwarts last year?"

"Mum wanted me in muggle school for as long as possible," said Rose.

"What good is muggle school?" he asked, and when Rose snorted and grew red, he amended—"What? It's an honest question. What good is it?"

"Well," said Rose. "Do you know what the capital of Germany is?"

Scorpius frowned. "No. Why?"

"Well, it teaches you that, for one. Square root of four?"

"What what of what?"

"Yeah, and that. Any idea of what causes an earthquake?"

"I know this one. You get earthquakes whenever all the garden gnomes have a reunion."

"Actually, it's when giant slabs of land rub against each other, _idiot_. Do you even know how many planets there are?"

"Hey, wizards have Astronomy!"

"Oh, yeah. Well, there's that at least."

"But what good is any of that?"

"They're the building blocks of basic intelligence, Scorpius."

"Yeah, you love learning _anything_, but that doesn't mean it's useful. Some people like to count sand. They live in a magical land called St. Mungo's." He turned abruptly to Albus. "Thought of a name for your pet?"

"I dunno if I'd call him a pet, exactly," said Albus.

"Whatever it is," said Scorpius. Lenore shook her head and turned once again to her Potions homework.

"His name is Septimus," said Albus.

Scorpius nodded approvingly. "That _is_ the perfect name for it."

"Lenore thought of it," Rose said pointedly.

"O.K.," said Scorpius.

"Normally people pay their compliment to the person responsible for the thing you admire."

"Yeah, well. It applies to her."

"Her is right here," said Lenore. Glaring at her homework, a brilliant idea flared into being. Scorpius was asking for punishment. And she had just met the self-professed Prank King of Hogwarts. She smiled, looking forward to the weekend in the muggle village of Hogsend more than ever.

There was a squawk from the front desk—Madam Pince. Ginny Potter's golden eagle flew in through the front doors of a library with a determined look on his face. Gordon was an impatient and crafty owl who liked to search out the addressees of his letters wherever they were. He flew obliviously past Madame Pince and landed on the desk, and dropped a letter in front of Albus. He set to preening himself immediately. He was a very vain owl; he'd managed to find a small mirror and brought it to his nest. He only stopped looking at himself when it was time to eat.

Madam Pince was storming over to them with a wooden pointer in her hand. Albus stood up immediately. Rose looked around in a noncommittal way.

"Get. That. Owl. Out. Of. My. Library," she seethed. Scorpius looked completely amused.

Gordon was an efficient bird, but he didn't like being hurried out of his procedures. He paid no mind to Madam Pince as he preened his feathers, even when she rose the pointer threateningly.

"Please, Madame Pince," said Albus.

"Detention, Mr. Potter! Detention, Miss Weasely!"

"What?" exclaimed Rose, loudly.

"Detention, Mr. Malfoy! Detention, Miss Yates!"

Scorpius and Lenore stared at Madam Pince as if she was insane. Albus was honestly worried that the look Rose was giving her might cause physical damage. Miraculously, however, no one said anything, and Gordon decided he'd finished with his duties, and Madame Pince stormed off.

"It's just detention," said Albus, picking up the scroll, which was covered in stickers.

"Lily?" asked Rose as he unrolled it, and Albus nodded.

Dear Albus,

Mummy told me to rite you and so that's wot I'm doing. I miss playing with you and with Ralphy and tell Ralphy HELLO. Hugo is not as fun as you but I am glad Rose is gone becuz she is mean. Hugo won't do soldiers vs. dinosors with me. An also James told him that the dinosors are majiked to bite an so he won't touch them. Here is a new ribbon for Ralphy and tell him GOODBYE. An goodbye to you also.

Sincerely,

Lily Luna Potter

P.S. Tell James he's a boogerhead.

Albus quickly rolled up the parchment before Scorpius's spying eyes could make out any mention of Ralphy. Ralphy was Albus's teddy bear, very, very much loved between himself and Lily. James had once abducted him for ransom, and very often chastised his ickle brother for his attachment to him. Albus had considered leaving him with Lily, but it was _his_, and he could bear to part with him. Unfortunately, being in Slytherin, he felt it was safer for Ralphy to stay hidden inside his luggage. And there was no telling how Septimus would react to him.

.((0)).

Louis had a terrible secret that he kept even from Freddy. He loved to dance. He couldn't resist choreographing whole dance sequences in his head when he listened to music or played the piano. As much as he loved classical, he gravitated towards jazz and funk and rock music. Classical was pretty undanceable. And, when he was alone, he would dance.

He hadn't learned it from any particular place, although he'd absorbed a lot from Fred Astaire and music videos. He was pretty sure he was good. But dancing was a pretty verboten activity among eleven-year-old boys, so he'd never danced in front of anyone. Anyways, it would be silly to dance with other people standing still, and he'd never been anywhere where there were large groups of people dancing. He planned on looking forward to looking old enough to get into clubs. Until then, the dancing was under wraps.

The main difficulty Hogwarts accorded to Louis was a place to dance. He had his own room at Shell Cottage, and there were plenty of secluded places around his home. Also, his record player worked there. It was a good thing Freddy had thought ahead enough to get Uncle George to transfer their music collection into the music box. It had taken a full week over the summer, actually. There was much griping over how many albums two boys could possibly need.

So he had a way to hear his songs, but and he was currently scouring the grounds for a secluded place. He kept on chancing glances at the Forbidden Forest, even though he knew it would be silly to go into it, no matter how tempting it might look from here.

After a few hours of wandering, Louis finally thought to check a shed near the greenhouse. It was cluttered up with bottles of fertilizers and garden tools, but it looked all right. Louis practiced his levitating skills and cleared enough of the room to have some floor space. Then he turned on the box, and danced.

They say you should dance like no one is watching, and since that was generally how Louis danced, it wasn't exactly a problem. The problem came when you danced with complete abandon, trying out a few moves that looked good in your head but felt a bit awkward when you tried it, and then turned around, and discovered that you had forgotten to lock the door.

Sadie Thomas was watching him. Sadie Thomas, the girl that he and Freddy had secretly agreed was both the prettiest and nicest girl in their year at Gryffindor. He wondered briefly if he knew any spells that might make him suddenly disappear, but the only one he could think of was apparition, and he had no idea how to do that.

Sadie laughed at him and walked over. "Don't be shy," she told him, and deftly wiggled her shoulders in time to the music. The heat of humiliation died down. After an appraising look, Louis gave up and gave in. Sadie broke out into full-on dance moves, clever combinations of movements complete with little flourishes.

"How do you know how to dance like that?" he asked.

"Classes, mostly. How do you know?"

"Fred Astaire and music videos."

"That's pretty good considering you've never been taught."

"I'm a boy," he said, and she laughed.

"I wish more boys knew how to dance," she said.

"You know this music?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"Are you muggleborn?"

"My mum's a muggle. My dad's a muggleborn wizard, but he has a muggle job."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah. He's an artist, and he says there are more jobs in the muggle world for artists. And there were no art schools in the wizarding world. But he's a wizard, always does magic around the house."

"I like the muggle world. Films and comics and music and things—it's much better than in the wizarding world—and we don't even have films!"

"Or computers."

"It's pretty crap, isn't it? If only technology functioned around magic. I really miss my record player."

"You have a record player?"

"Yeah. We've got a room we don't do magic in, and we have eckeltricity in there."

"Electricity."

"Oh. So that's why Aunt Hermione was laughing at me."

"Probably," Sadie agreed.

The song ended, and Louis tapped the box with his wand. Good luck as it was to have found a dancing partner at long last, Louis was fired up with a brilliant idea. "You wouldn't happen to sing, would you?" he asked.

.((0)).

Albus peered into his trunk. "Hey—Septimus," he whispered in parseltongue. The Naga turned to him, his seven heads bobbing, central head turned directly towards him. "Can you tell me if anyone comes to the door?"

The central head bobbed by way of response.

Albus breathed a sigh of relief, and pulled Ralphy out of his trunk. He took the yellow ribbon Lily had sent him and tied it around the toy's neck. The tattered bear had a virtual scarf of ribbons around his neck now. "Why am I so rubbish at magic, Ralphy?" he moaned, clutching the bear to his chest.

Every class seemed to be an opportunity for humiliation. Potions was horrible, he hated Slughorn, who had begun the class by singling him out and trying to recruit him into the Slug Club, and ended class by pretending Albus was invisible. His lack of talent was pretty undeniable, seeing that he was wearing the contents of his cauldron, which meant that he had spent most of the day sporting fur. He felt bad for not sympathizing more with Lenore when those Slytherin girls had turned her skin green.

It was bad enough that Sadie, Louis, and Freddy now sat three at a table, and that Freddy had amusedly let Sadie and Louis partner up—but did they all have to laugh at him?

And then he heard they were all in a band together. Albus knew about Louis and Freddy's plans to start a band at Hogwarts. He'd thought it was a good idea until that band included Sadie Thomas as lead singer. They only needed a drummer, now.

It suddenly didn't seem fair that Louis and Freddy could not only do magic without their cauldrons exploding, but also had other talents. "Why can't I be good at anything?" asked Albus.

"It seems," said Septimus, "that you have only tried to be good at magic."

Albus considered this. "Could you make me good at music?" he hazarded.

The central head regarded him. "Art is the third of my powers," it told him. "Congratulations. You may now avail yourself of it."

.((0)).

It was amazing how many people had turned up to the band auditions—rumors had flown like wildfire around the school, and Sadie had talked Freddy and Louis into holding them out of doors—they shouldn't limit themselves to Gryffindor if they really wanted to find someone good. What was equally amazing, however, was how few people who had come to audition knew how to play their instruments. Sadie and Freddy and Louis were currently watching a Hufflepuff boy pointing a drumstick at the drumset with a look a furious concentration on his face—he seemed to think drumsticks worked like wands. All three members of the band were biting their lips to keep from laughing. Only a few of the auditioners seemed to even realize anything was amiss.

There was a rustle in the crowd and Louis turned to see what had caused it. Ah. It was Albus and Lenore and Rose and Scorpius. What was causing the commotion, and the occasional shriek of terror, was Albus's new Naga.

Albus was quickly becoming, to all the Weaseleys, the boy most likely to do something out of character. There was his getting into Slytherin, there was the fact that he was a Parseltongue, and there was… Septimus. And Albus was giving Louis a very un-Albus-like look as he walked through the crowd towards them. The Hufflepuff boy gave up and slunk off the stage, but no one noticed.

"Hiya, Al," said Freddy. "Come to see the auditions?"

"I want to audition myself, actually," he said in a very determined way. It wasn't like Albus to be determined. Again, Albus gave Louis something very near a dirty look.

Freddy shrugged. "Suit yourself."

Albus nodded, and walked over to the drum set, the Naga following him.

"Hope he doesn't embarrass himself too badly," Freddy whispered to Louis. But Louis was fairly sure, as Albus sat down, that they wouldn't have to worry about that. If only due to the well-known fact that Albus Severus Potter was as likely to subject himself to embarrassment as he was to perform a spell successfully.

Sadie was watching with a half-smile on her face as Albus sat at the drum kit, a drumstick in each hand. Then, looking absolutely furious as he did so, Albus began to play.

He didn't embarrass himself. No, not at all. Overnight, Albus had become John Bonham. Louis was pretty sure this had something to do with the Naga—he really ought to ask about it. He chanced a look at the crowd. They were transfixed, even more than Gryffindor had been when Louis and Freddy introduced them to muggle music.

"Welcome to the band," said Sadie under her breath, looking far more impressed than Louis would have liked.


	7. Chapter 7

Reviewer replies:

5redroses—yes, a smidge. They're a bit young to resolve it.

Blindfaithoperadiva—catch that bus.

Blackpants—well, if they're those super-tight stretchy black jeans, then they're emo. Unless you mean pants in the English way, in which case—sexy emo! (Man, now I have a mental picture of a tickle me Elmo doll in garters). And Nagas aren't mine, they're very common where I am now in Southeast Asia. As statues, not as real things. The flavor of Buddhism here is such that in his transcendental meditative state, a Naga came to Buddha, ready to kill him, but his buzz was so mellow the Naga decided to curl himself around the Buddha and protect him instead. So you see Buddha with a Naga behind him all the time.

TheCrescentMoonWriter—Yeah, Septimus was kind of the only name, really.

Rosiline—thanks, see above.

JessFantasy16—I can't wait for them to get older, either. I'm semi-determined to really map out their first year, and I've got an actual storyline for their second year (first year is just settling in, really, no adventures per se), but then maybe I can write a super-short third year in order to get them onto that fourth-year ball room floor.

READERS of ETSCBM—So I have done it. Halfway, anyway. I have a livejournal site up so you can have a nicer reading experience. I've only posted the first chapter because I'm going to edit the chapters, and honestly I need people that would be willing to read the occasional chapter and nitpick. Volunteers? TO ME. Here's the address: vasilisa23./ If you want to take dibs on a chapter you can PM me or whatever.

Chapter 7

Lorcan was reading a wizarding comic book upside-down again. It really irritated Lysander when he did this, mostly because it always made people giggle. Always. You'd think the humor would wear off after you saw it the first ten times. The sad thing about it was Lorcan actually _could_ read upside down. It was easier for him, actually. Their mother had taught him how after Lorcan asked her about her morning habit of an upside-down Quibbler with her coughing coffee.

Rose sat down with them at the Gryffindor table and rolled her eyes at Lorcan. This caused Lysander to smile, and they exchanged wry smiles. Lysander had been ecstatic when Rose had been admitted into Ravenclaw. They had been friends since they could remember. Ginny, Luna, and Hermione had weekly playtimes for their children, during which James and Lorcan took the opportunity to terrorize the others, Albus invariably clung to his mother (the image of a wee Harry clinging to Ginny's leg with his thumb in his mouth was much too cute to discourage) and Lily and Hugo made the prank attacks into adventures. Rose and Lysander had always escaped these attacks, to explore the land around their houses, or to find some nook to sit in with a book (they read each other favorite passages aloud—to have that habit found out would have humiliated the both of them). And every once in a while Lysander would assist Rose in some brilliant revenge on James and Lorcan, in which the worse portion always fell to James.

Lysander was good at all kinds of magic—his house contained rare books of strange spells, and he did love to explore the library for the books that felt true. This preoccupation with truth meant that his mother's passion for the strange and occult had been funneled into a useful set of skills in her son. He'd had the run of the Hogwart's Library for a year now, and he'd pursued his accumulated reserve of esoterica to his heart's content—Rose tended to be skeptical about these things, which he welcomed (it gave him a keener feel for the difference between strange-but-true and just-plain-silly). Still, it was nice to just drift and read things and find out wonderful bits of knowledge or spells that might somehow come in handy.

Rose leaned towards him in a conspiring manner. He knew this lean. This was the I-need-you-to-help-me-make-something-insane-happen lean, a specialty of Rose's. If you were on the receiving end of this lean, it was impossible to resist the visions at the end of her plans. Rose was a firm believer in choosing your own adventure.

"What is it this time?" asked Lysander before she opened her mouth. "No, let me guess. Has to be trickier than anything in this castle—unless you're trying to get into Slughorn's cabinets?"

"Well, you're right about it not being in the castly," Rose admitted. "I'll give you a hint. It's something I've talked about before. Something I've been told specifically not to do."

"Oh, Grawp," said Lysander. "I forgot about Grawp."

Lorcan poked his fluffy blonde head over her brother's shoulder. "What about Grawp?"

Lysander turned to Lorcan. "Rose wants to meet him," he explained.

"Oh," said Lorcan, turning back to his upside-down magazine. "I can take her to meet him."

"Oh, can you?" asked Lysander. He was only a bit skeptical. Lorcan tended to believe anything you told him, but he himself never lied.

"Mum says Giants really like pickles," Lorcan said, nodding. "I asked Hagrid if he ever gave Grawp pickles, and he hadn't, and I said it seemed like a shame, so he took me down with a leftover bucket from dinner, and it turns out mum was right."

"So," said Rose, biting into a piece of toast, "pickles, hmm?"

.((0)).

On the day Lenore and James were supposed to go to Hogsmeade, Lenore woke up two hours early. She had learned three wards and two protective spells so far, and she had put them up well enough that she was no longer bothered in bed by those horrible girls, Emma and Kaley and Jenna. Jenna was the worst of them, and the prettiest, as it so often went. Emma was just cold, and Kaley just went along with anything they did. Lenore hated Kaley the most since she ofted suffered lapses of memory when alone with Lenore, and tried to engage her attention in banal wizarding subjects.

Thank goodness Albus was around so she wouldn't have to sit with these horrible girls for seven years worth of classes. Unfortunately, this was meaning more and more that she was sitting with Scorpius Malfoy. She almost wanted to prank him more than her Slytherin roommates—after all, they were currently in a holding pattern, whereas Scorpius was infiltrating her territory. Ultimately, though, every deserving party should really be made to suffer, or else she'd never see the end of it.

She'd gotten up early to put the finishing touches on her Prank List. On it she had the names of every Slytherin who'd been rude to her, or hexed her, or somehow or other insulted her. She had a few proposed pranks, but as James was the self-professed expert, she wanted his professional opinion. She wanted to carry out her revenge as loudly and decidedly as possible. That was always how it went—carry the biggest stick. It's stupid to carry a gun if you weren't prepared to shoot, Rex had always told her. He'd meant it metaphorically, of course.

After she penned some parting notes, she rolled up the parchment and brought it with her into the showers—she wouldn't make the mistake of leaving something like this around the vile harpy roommates from Hades, protective charms or no. She happily changed into a non-Slytherin denominated outfit and practically skipped up to the Room of Requirement to meet James. He was already there. Maybe it was just because it was morning, but his shirt was tucked in, his hair was combed back, and his glasses were perched neatly on his nose.

"Hi," said James.

"Hi," said Lenore.

"So."

"So."

"Um," he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets, "The, uh, secret passage is on the first floor. By the statue of the one-eyed witch."

"OK," said Lenore. "Let's go." Her temporary discomfort disappeared very quickly when she thought of actually being able to use her computer again—she'd be able to see Rex's website again.

James led the way, and showing people secrets was one of his favorite things to do, so his discomfort also disappeared quickly.

"Do you have wireless?" James asked her.

"Oh, yeah," said Lenore carelessly. "Airport."

"What?"

Lenore gestured at her bag. "I've got a Mac."

"OK. I'm not sure what a Mac is or what it had to do with airports—"

Lenore laughed. "Oh, now you see what it's like for me—what, you don't know who Celestina Warbuck is? You didn't know Rasputin was a magician? You've never read Beadle the Bard?"

"You've never read Beadle the Bard?"

Lenore shot him a dirty look. She was very good at dirty looks.

"I was kidding. Anyway, I dunno if Hogsend will have any wireless places. It's a really small town."

"Oh, don't worry about it. I can get a connection to the internet anywhere."

"You can?"

"Yeah, I set up the internet connection at the orphanage. Also the cable connection to the television, although we keep that a secret."

"Don't you have to pay for that?"

"I just redirect the signal from the warehouse near us."

"Isn't that stealing?"

"They don't lose the connection; we just gain it."

"Oh." James thought it over; the logic of it was sound. "There's a definite value to this sort of thinking."

"I always thought so," said Lenore breezily. Despite her tone, she was quelling a moment of brief panic; she hadn't meant to say anything about the cable, it had just popped out, and for a moment there, she was worried James would think poorly of her. She stifled a sigh.

They'd reached the statue by this point. James tapped it with his wand and said: "Dissendium."

Lenore smiled when the gray brick wall swung back with a groan. "Just like in the movies," she breathed.

"Ready?" asked James.

"Definitely," Lenore answered with a grin.

.((0)).

"Hey, look!" shouted Gregory Goyle (The Tenth) as Lysander, Lorcan, and Rose made their way down from the Ravenclaw dormitories. "It's Lysander Scamander!"

He was with some unfortunate looking girl with an equally unfortunate laugh.

It wasn't so much that Lysander hated the name Lysander, as that he hated the name Lysander Scamander. What on earth had his parents been thinking? Granted, he never knew what his mother was thinking, but his father at least should have had more sense.

"I swear to Merlin, I'm changing my last name to Lovegood as soon as I'm old enough."

Rose glanced behind her with a raised eyebrow.

"Don't," he said, seeing an awful curse on the tip of her tongue.

"Oh, come on, Lysander!"

"I don't like people defending me," he said.

"But you never defend yourself," she countered.

"I don't have the temper of a werewolf," said Lysander.

"I don't have a temper!" she protested.

"Oh, please, Rose."

"She's right, though," said Lorcan thoughtfully. "She never does get mad, actually. I think she just looks for an excuse to hex people. She never looks angry when she does it. Rather gleeful about it, really."

Lysander considered the point. "That's true, actually."

"Good," said Rose happily.

"No temper," said Lysander. "Just joy at causing pain. Much better, really."

Rose folded her arms. "No one understands my genius."

"Lord Voldemort might have," Lorcan said sweetly, and she glared at him.

"You're just here to hold the pickles, you know."

It was a slightly tricky business to get into the Forbidden Forest during daytime hours. On the one hand, they could get out of the castle. On the other hand, so could everyone else, and Hogwarts grounds were full of potential witnesses. Lorcan and Lysander were too tall to fit under the invisibility cloak together (which James had stolen back from her for about one day before Rose managed to get it back). In the end Rose went with Lorcan, who was the most likely of them to do something stupid, and therefore the most necessary to disguise. Lysander circled around Hagrid's hut and muddled in after them.

Grawp now lived in a cave in the Forbidden Forest—there were rumors that Dumbledore had created the whole thing to house Hagrid's half-brother, which made Rose quite eager to see it. Lorcan took them along the path to the cave. He'd been pretty easy to talk into taking them, even without Hagrid's supervision. Lorcan was easy to talk into anything, however. He was always the first student to try something in Care of Magical Creatures—five trips to Madame Pomfrey's later, he still believed everything Hagrid had to say about his precious animals.

They heard Grawp before they saw him—or rather, they heard the sound that trees make when there's no one around to hear them scream. Moments later, a massive boulder of a head rose above the tree-line. Lysander stepped back, and it occurred to him that he'd never actually been in the Forbidden Forest. Much less near a Giant. Rose, however, developed a broad grin and positively ran to the Giant. Lorcan followed her, bucket of pickles jostling, and so did Lysander a few moments later.

Rose shrieked and Lysander's blood ran cold. He ran as fast as he could, breaking through the trees, forgetting everything he'd learned in Herbology about contact poisons and man-eating plants. He was not reassured at what he saw. What he saw was Rose in Grawp's massive hand, only her curly-haired head visible.

"Rose!" he shouted.

"What?" she shrieked back, and giggled.

The giggle gave him pause. "Are you all right?"

"Of course I'm all right!" she shouted, and shrieked again when Grawp tossed her into the air. She landed laughing on his palm.

"Are you sure?" he shouted. "Haven't misplaced your ability to sense impending death or anything?" Actually, Rose might never have had that ability.

"No!" she shouted, jumping up and down on Grawp's hand to get him to toss her up. Now that Lysander looked at Grawp's face, it didn't seem… completely insane. Only partially. Grawp seemed to be enjoying himself. So he wouldn't, Lysander was pretty sure, actually _try_ to kill Rose.

Lysander leaned against a tree. "Pickle?" asked Lorcan as he chewed on one. Lysander made a dismissive noise and looked around him. The cave stretched up above the trees a few hundred yards away, massive and… purple. So there must be something to those rumors about Dumbledore constructing it, after all. He cast a look up towards Rose. Well, if she wasn't going to be worried about dying, he oughtn't to either.

So Lysander stuck his hands in his pockets and made his way through the trees towards Grawp's cave.

.((0)).

James felt, upon entering Hogsend, that the bookstore or the library would be the best place to find an internet connection, but Lenore insisted on a coffee shop. She hadn't had good coffee in so long—what they served at Hogwarts was more like flavored water than coffee. This made James realize he'd forgotten all about the fact that muggles didn't use galleons or sickles or knuts, but Lenore had brought muggle money. James promised her heartily to pay her back, but Lenore waved away the suggestion. After all, it wasn't her money, it was old Mrs. Finkelstein's, who didn't deserve it anyway. After all, it's not like she ever did her job, and Lenore ought to be paid for living under the same roof as that awful old biddy (to be fair, she'd split what she'd stolen with all the other orphans).

So they ended up in a homey café called Flora's Urn, with tables that looked as though they'd been decorated by children and walls covered in community announcement bills. Lenore unpacked her computer. James was pretty much entirely unfamiliar with what happened at this point, but he noticed that her computer had two cords, with two radically different kinds of plugs, and the outlet on the wall only had one—except that when Lenore plugged her computer in, there was another, square-shaped outlet for her plug. James was far to familiar with magic to believe he simply hadn't noticed it before.

Lenore was typing into her laptop. "I'll get it any second now," she was saying.

"The internet?"

"Yup."

"Um… Just out of curiosity, how did you do that cable thing you were talking about before?"

"Oh, I just messed around with the remote control until I hacked through the wires into the system."

"The system." James furrowed his eyebrows and looked at the computer. "Lenore?"

"Yeah?" she said, typing madly, her face caught in the glow from the screen.

"Can you do something for me?"

"Sure."

"Could you, like, configure your screen into something for a moment?"

Lenore stopped typing abruptly and stared at him in shock. "Magic ruins technology! Do you know what I went through to get this computer?"

James shook his head. "Nevermind. Just kidding." He stood. He should have known better than to suggest her computer. He looked around the room and saw a battery-powered digital clock near a coffee canister. He grabbed it and kneeled by Lenore again. "OK, transfigure this into something and back," he said.

Lenore turned to him again, not just her head but her whole body. "What's this about, James?"

He considered the clock in his hand. "I think you might have some kind of technological magical ability."

"What? That's impossible."

"It's not," he said, shaking his head. "There's wizards with singular abilities—like Albus, he's a Parseltongue, and Teddy's a Metamorphmagus. You can't learn those things. Maybe you have like—a unique ability with technology."

Lenore stared at him for a moment, her mouth slightly open. The she looked intently at the clock in his hand. She took her wand out of her pocket and pointed it at the clock. "Mutatis Agropus," she intoned. The clock contorted in James' hand and became a peach. "Finite incantatem," she said. The peach turned into a clock. It blinked the same time it had before.

"It's still working," said James. "Technology is immune to your magic, Lenore."

She started to smile. "It is, isn't it?"

"And I'm pretty sure no one else can get onto the internet the way you do."

"No?" she asked, looking surprised.

"That's how your magic came out," he said.

"Wow," she breathed. "I always wanted to be a hacker. Now I can be a _magical_ hacker." Suddenly, she leapt out of her chair and squeezed James in a manic hug. "Oh, thank you, James! I can still do what I always wanted to do!" She withdrew from him and smiled happily up at him, and he smiled too, although he was rubbing his arm. "Just think, I might never have known if not for you!"

"Hey, didn't I tell you I was a clever guy?"

"And humble," she smiled. Then she deflated. "But what use is it if everyone else's magic interferes with technology?"

She had a point there. "Maybe we'll figure it out," said James.

"I could always just use it in the muggle world."

"You could."

"But where can I practice?"

"Here," said James.

"But—"

"We'll come every weekend," he said.

Lenore looked at him hopefully. "Really?"

"Of course."

.((0)).

"Rose!"

Rose turned abruptly from her perch on Grawp's hand. Lysander broke through a copse of trees and streamed towards her and Lorcan. He was wearing the same grin he'd worn when they discovered that abandoned muggle house near Godric's Hollow. Rose jumped easily from Grawp's hand, and applied a Wingardium Leviosa to herself to control her descent.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Have you been to the cave?"

"Obviously not."

"Sorry, right, obviously—but you have to see!"

"Is it Dumbledore's room?" asked Lorcan sleepily. He'd half-finished the bucket of pickles, which was absolutely disgusting.

"Dumbledore's room?" asked Lysander. "I thought it was a library… And you've been there?"

"Oh, yes, he has a library, but I like the never-ending candy box. He also has a laboratory."

"Lorcan," exclaimed Rose, "why didn't you tell us?"

"You didn't ask," he said simply.

"Right. I think I'm going to start my day by asking you if you know anything interesting from now on," she muttered.

"You might not get where you want on Lorcan's definition of 'interesting'," Lysander pointed out.

Rose turned to him. "It's in the cave?"

"It's in the cave."

"You know," she said thoughtfully, "we probably shouldn't tell anyone about this."

"But—it's Dumbledore's _secret room_. Can you imagine what's in there?"

"I can," said Rose, "but I'd prefer not to imagine, I'd prefer to find out, and I don't think I'll find out much if we let a bunch of grown-ups know about it. They'll never let us in!"

"This is true," said Lorcan, chewing thoughtfully on a pickle. "Grown-ups are very fond of not letting you do things." He paused for a moment and swallowed. "Except for Hagrid."


End file.
